Silent All These Years
by Sabrina Empress of Insanity
Summary: For as long as he can remember, Toby has felt out of place and haunted by dreams that feel almost real. Then one day, he makes a wish...and everything begins to make sense... Slash content
1. Chapter One

**Chapter One**  
  
_If I could find myself one more time…_  
-"Mirai No Kioku"  
  
  
Toby curled up in the seat by the bay window in his parent's room, and stared out the window. It didn't matter how much time went by, how old he got, whether his life was good or bad, he always, always ended up in the same place.  
  
_She's furious. She won't let me back into the house. I deserve it. I still always end up here. It's just this time, I have an excuse._  
  
His mother would be furious, too. Toby could hear her lecture as if she were already there; when will you learn that it's time to grow up, why can't you be more like your sister, we can't take care of you forever…Sarah had gone through her rebellious phase, he'd heard stories, but as long as Toby could remember she had been a model sister, always appreciative and so full of love it was stifling. Their father often joked about the transformation from moody teenage to miniature angel, saying it must've been magic that changed her almost overnight. Sarah would laugh and flash Toby a secretive smile whenever her said that.  
  
Toby hated it. He didn't remember Sarah before she had changed. And he didn't like them joking about magic.  
  
He remembered Sarah's fairy tales and stories…she outgrew living in her fantasy world by the time he started preschool, but she'd told him stories until the day she had her own daughter. He remembered that even when he hated her sweet nature, or wished she could hate him and stop lavishing all her suffocating affection and protection upon him, he had loved hearing those tales. He would want her to disappear but he always loved her for her stories and the magic in them.  
  
But even more, he remembered the dreams.  
  
Toby could remember being so small he could barely climb into bed alone, crying out for Sarah and clutching Lancelot till the teddy bear could have choked. It was always Sarah he called for after the dreams, Sarah he talked to, because she always listened seriously and with all her soul. And it was only in the mornings if he mentioned them again that she dared say it was just a dream.  
  
He remembered the earliest dreams were those of dark stone corridors, music, noise, and goblins and monsters. Yet these never scared him. He felt safe with them. It was the silence that scared him, the walls crumbling down around him, and later, the staircases coming out of walls upside down that turned him round and round so he could never get at what he was looking for…it was the sound of breaking glass as everything suddenly fell apart, with no way to escape.   
  
Lancelot and Sarah made things better. He slept with Lancelot till he was ten or maybe even older, and he cried to Sarah until she left for college when he was six, and even then he called her to talk about the dreams and ran to her when she was home. It wasn't until he was fourteen that he stopped trusting her. That was when he began to resent the stories of Sarah The Caring Obedient Daughter, when he started to realize that they were kidding about magic. He'd always hated it when his parents and even Sarah told him the stories were just stories. It was only then that he realized they really believed it.  
  
That had hurt, the realization…not as much with his father, but for realizing _Sarah_ thought it was all a joke. Sarah, who knew all about the dreams that haunted him more and more, Sarah who should have known better…Toby stopped trusting her then. He never told her about the dreams again, even as the strange man appeared in the shadows, never letting himself be seen by Toby, or when he first looked outside the castle windows to discover the endless maze beyond. And he never told her about the bay window in his parent's room.  
  
He'd always loved that window, with the high up view like something in a castle tower and the perpetual breezes it let in. It seemed to him there a whole other world was outside that one window, one he couldn't quite reach even though he longed to. Even more than Lancelot and Sarah, the window helped quiet his mind after the dreams. He would slip in there late at night, being careful not to wake his parents, and stare out the window until they stirred and he fled. As time went on, when he was sad, stressed, confused, anything at all, he found himself sitting beside the window more and more, whenever he could. Only there did he feel content. Only there did he feel close enough to the world he longed for but could not quite reach.  
  
College had been hard. He couldn't escape the dreams, couldn't hold Lancelot or run to the window, he couldn't deal with the idiots who called him crazy for believing in things they weren't smart enough to notice. He wondered, when he woke from dreams growing steadily more sad, dark, and desperate, if they were right. So Toby dropped out, came home, started classes at the nearest college so he could come home whenever he wanted….not to his parents, but the window to another world.  
  
Those dreams that haunted him…he knew magic was no laughing matter. Those dreams were proof of that.  
  
And now he found himself back at the window, peering out and trying to see the real world beyond the scrim of his hometown, like so many times before. Is parents would be furious to find him there, to hear about how he'd left Anna after so much. He wouldn't tell them about how she'd called him crazy, how he's told her _she_ made him crazy, how he'd thrown his Prozac into the toilet and yelled that any dream world was better than the life she wanted to force onto him, or even about how she had thrown the angels from their engagement party at him, followed by the ring itself as she screamed for him to get out for good. They would be angry enough as it was.  
  
Toby stared out at the sky and wondered if there had been a moment in all 22 years of his existence where he hadn't felt haunted and out of place.  
  
The floor began to rumble beneath his feet. His parents were home.   
  
Toby continued to stare out the window, and waited for the inevitable.   
  
  
  
Toby's room might've belonged to a stranger. Even as a child, he didn't keep much there. He wanted space, he wanted to be able to pack up and leave at a moment's notice. Now, with so much of his life locked away in the duplex he and Anna had shared, it was like a guest room, nothing more. Toby wondered if Lancelot was in Sarah's room again, for when his nieces came by. Everything in the duplex was junk. Thank god he had left Lancelot here.  
  
Toby turned over in his bed and stared at the digital clock on his dresser. 2:34. He'd gone straight to his room after dinner at around 7:30, listening to his parents argue about him until 10:50 or 10:51. He'd been lying awake for three hours and fifty-four minutes.  
  
Toby gave up trying to sleep. He threw off his covers, swung his feet out of bed, and headed to Sarah's room.  
  
It had been sixteen years since Sarah had left home for school, twelve or more since she'd lived there, but her room still cried out for her, for the fourteen year old brat who loved make believe. Tony glanced at himself in the vanity mirror as he passed. A tall, too-thin young man with tidy blonde hair and sullen, confused blue eyes stared back at him from behind the necklaces and rose crowns hanging from the mirror.  
  
Lancelot was seated in one of the display shelves on the walls. Sarah had told him about how she never played with her fantasy collections, and used to throw complete fits when one of her dolls or stuffed animals went missing. "Mom and Dad would give them to you to play with," she would say, "and I used to wish you'd never been born."  
  
"Then why did you give me Lancelot?" he had asked once. "Wasn't he your favorite?"  
  
Sarah had nodded, and smiled that secret smile she used when her father talked about her magic transformation. "Something happened to make me change my mind."  
  
She never said another word about it. Toby didn't think he'd ever forgiven her for that.  
  
Sarah had books everywhere, all over her room. Not young adult minidramas or fluffy fairytales, no…these were the real things, the dark stories, the originals, all the classic tales and fantasies. Toby pulled Lancelot down from his shelf and lay down on Sarah's bed, holding the teddy bear tightly in one arm. He reached for the stack of books on her bedside table.  
  
_Grimm's Fairytales, The Complete Hans Christen Anderson, The Sandman, Labyrinth, The Storyteller, Celtic Myths and Faerie Tales…_ Toby skimmed the titles, and decided on The Sandman and Labyrinth. He'd never read the latter, and the former was more than appropriate for the moment. Feeling not exactly comfortable, but certainly more at home than in his own room, Toby settled back against the pillows, propped Lancelot in his lap, and started to read.  
  
The Sandman was almost too fast. The clock in Sarah's room read 3:49 when Toby put down the book. Ironically enough, he felt more awake than when he'd started the book. Toby frowned at it, but with a smile in his eyes. "False advertising," he muttered in mock annoyance. "Time for a new read."  
  
He picked up Labyrinth. The book was well-worn, the pages dog-eared, lines underlined, the spine almost shot completely. _Sarah must've really liked this book,_ he thought briefly, wondering if it had been Old Sarah or Perfect Sarah who had worn it out so. It was probably Old Sarah. Perfect Sarah had never mentioned this story to him before.  
  
Toby switched Lancelot to his other arm. He opened the book and began to read.  
  
This time, time flew.  
  
Toby glanced up at the clock only once. It didn't seem like he'd been reading long, but the time read 5:46. Strange how this book seemed to take so much less time to read and yet he'd read The Sandman in nearly the same amount of time and here he was with at least a third to go. Toby looked back at the book, and shook his head. It was amazing. The story was fascinating, the characters were classic good and evil…  
  
Toby felt like he'd read it all before. Only no princess came to save him. He'd stayed…in all of his dreams, he had stayed.  
  
_"I have come to this castle beyond the goblin city to take back the child which you have stolen from me."_  
  
Toby shook his head. _Let him have the child. I bet when he grows up, he'll hate you for taking you away. He's too young to know he's in danger…he'll always leave part of himself there in the goblin city, and he'll hate you for taking him away from it._  
  
The princess was stupid. She kept going, challenging the goblin king.  
  
_"For my will is strong, and my kingdom is great. You have no power over me."_  
  
Toby snapped the book closed.  
  
He didn't want to read anymore. He knew what would happen. He didn't want it to.   
  
The clock read 6:15. The sun would be rising soon.  
  
  
  
  
Sunrise from the bay window was breathtaking. Toby didn't see any of it. He gazed at nothing through the glass.  
  
_Sarah never told me that story. I wonder if she knew what I would think of it. That idiotic princess. If I were that kid, I'd never forgive her._  
  
The goblin city sounded so much like his dreams. Maybe Sarah did know what he would have thought of the book. It was likely, actually, given what he'd told her about the dreams. But they were comforting…sad, now, and frantic, as if something were running out of time…but he felt more at home there than anywhere. Even the bay window where he now sat was like a play set compared to the dreams.  
  
Toby wished desperately that he could stay there for good. No princess rescued him…only waking reality.  
  
_I wish the goblins would come and take me away, right now. Toby rested his forehead on the glass. I'd give anything to get out of this place._  
  
There was a moment of silence, a brief second of cold where Toby's head touched the glass. The next minute, everything was dark.  
  
  
  
A hand brushed through Toby's hair, gently stroking the fine blonde strands. Toby opened his eyes slowly, thoughts fuzzy and confused. He was slumped half seated against something hard and edged, maybe a chair or table, I though with a solid base. Everything was silent…no footfalls, no wind, no noise outside, no hum of the heater. Complete silence.  
  
He hated silence. It terrified him.  
  
"You're awake," a low voice whispered above him. "Good."  
  
Toby sat up slowly, a bit dizzy. The floor was cold beneath him. Stone. He was resting against stone. No wonder he ached.  
  
"I must say you are by far the oldest visitor I've had in this place. Or captive, though you are also the only one to wish himself here. Visitor seems more appropriate to this situation."  
  
The voice was smooth, middling in range but rich, with a deep feel if not in sound, a sensuous British drawl like a voice from an old movie…well-mannered, but not heavy. There was a faintly scratchy undertone to it, like an old record. Toby turned, willing his head to clear. He sat before a small throne of time-dimmed, sandy colored stone. The room was easily as large as one of the lecture halls at college, and made of the same stone, hung with a few tattered dark drapings, and crumbling away at the walls and windows. Resting with his knees crossed over one arm of the throne and the arm not stroking Toby's hair draped over the other was a man.  
  
The stranger's hand hesitated, then withdrew. He rested it across his chest and studied Toby through half-closed eyes, both blue, but one so brilliant it matched the August sky and the other pale enough to fall just short of gray. The few violet and blue streaks in his white blonde hair looked completely natural, not dyed at all. That coupled with the wing swept eyebrows and slightly pointed ears told Toby why. He hadn't suffered as Sarah's younger brother without taking some of her with him. This man was not human.  
  
"Your sister would be most upset to find you here," the man muttered with something that was not quite amusement. Toby forgot to breathe.  
  
The silence stretched, complete and interminable. Toby couldn't even hear the man's breathing. Finally, he spoke, lest the silence paralyze him. "How do you know Sarah?"  
  


"Oh, Sarah and I go back a long way." Long, lovely legs clad in what looked to Toby like black spandex swung off the arm of the throne and onto the floor. "I haven't seen her…or you…in years. But I don't think she's forgotten. You obviously haven't."  
  
"Forgotten?" Toby wondered why he didn't simply ask what made the most sense…where was he, why was he here, who was this stranger…but the words that left his lips seemed more important some how.  
  
The man's expression twitched for a moment. "No, I should say that Sarah still remembers. You probably don't. You were too small to be anything but a prize, after all."  
  
"We've met before? When I was small?"  
  
"Very small. I don't know how old you were, don't ask. Sarah would know. I wonder if she'll come back again to get you."  
  
Toby's world suddenly crystallized in a new pattern. "How old was Sarah then?"  
  
"I believe fourteen or so." The man never took his eyes off of Toby. His expression hadn't changed at all since that first sight, save the momentary twitch. "I didn't much care for details at the time."  
  
"I've been here before." Toby looked around. "Almost every night for as far back as I can remember." It felt right, he knew he was right. The rest of the castle looked like this room, though it was silent now. The maze outside the window. The shadows where this stranger no longer hid. "Sarah took me away?"  
  
"Sarah asked me to take you away."  
  
Toby turned, eyes seeking. "And then?"  
  
The man didn't answer for a moment. "She went back on her word. She took you home."  
  
Toby didn't dare let the silence reign again. This place was noise and music, not of his world, no, and not of anything most would prefer to the silence, but Toby had never feared those parts of the dream. This silence had no place in his dream. "Who are you?"  
  
The stranger stood, tall, regal, and utterly alone. His eyes still rested on Toby. He hadn't even blinked. "Welcome back to the goblin city, Toby. I am King Jareth."  
  
A small smile crept over his lips, and Toby realized that if he ever saw Sarah again, he would hate her for the rest of their lives.


	2. Chapter Two

_Author's Note: So, who's already given up on me? You shouldn't! Last chapter was just practice! . See...I write dialogue. That chapter had very little dialogue. And I'm going to try and keep it that way, comparatively so. So, in this chapter we get to see Toby walk, wander, meander, and walk some more. We also get to hear Jareth be all enigmatic. And best of all, we get to have a brief encounter within the Labyrinth itself. Also, I'll explain more about Anna, so yeah. Yaoi soon! I promise!_

**Chapter Two**

_But that was once upon a time, very long ago._  
-"Once Upon A Time"

Sunlight shone in through all the windows and cracks in the castle, bright and harsh. It should have made the place come alive. Instead, the light only accentuated the crumbling walls, the holes, the doorways that once led to rooms and now led outside. The sunlight should have been beautiful. Toby thought it just looked sick. 

The castle was old, much older than in his dreams...but in his dreams, there was much more noise, too, less of this all encompassing sadness. Toby still knew where everything was, though, all of the rooms he'd been to. The castle might be falling apart slowly around him, but it was still the place from restless nights and behind the bay window.

He should have felt out of place. He certainly looked it. Toby hadn't bothered changing for bed except to remove his shoes and watch...he was still dressed in the dark jeans and half-unbuttoned green shirt he'd been wearing when Anna threw him out. His socks were dirty from walking around the dusty halls, but he didn't stop. He had to keep moving. The swish of his jeans, the quiet thuds of his footfalls...these were the only sounds in the castle. If he stopped, it would all be silent again.

Sometimes he stopped to look out the windows, but it was silent outside as well. The labyrinth stretched out on all sides of the city as far as he could see. The sun was setting, sending strange shadows out over the maze. Toby never stopped for long. He meandered from room to room, peering in the different doors, finding places he hadn't already explored, looking for clues to his past here, keys to his memories.

"I wouldn't go that way."

The dark silk voice halted Toby in his steps. He glanced over his shoulder to where the goblin king leaned against the wall. Jareth fixed him with an amused gaze. "The way this place is set up, it's very easy to get lost."

Toby stared back at him, evaluating. "I have time. I doubt there's much work here for someone with my qualifications, so why shouldn't I explore?"

"What qualifications would those be?"

Toby turned to fully face the goblin king. "Psychology, strangely enough. Specializing in case studies...sleep disorders, phobias, that sort of thing." He paused. "Do you know what those are?"

"I know more about your world than you might think," Jareth answered wryly. "There isn't much work to be done around here anymore. Why shouldn't I observe the world your sister left here for?"

Toby narrowed his eyes, counting to ten slowly. "Touché."

"You're angry." Jareth stepped out of the shadows. "Why not show it? It was such an attractive characteristic in your sister, some of that must be in you as well."

Toby briefly restrained himself before giving in. "I'm not Sarah, and don't mock me. I really don't appreciate it. At all."

Jareth's lips quirked and he moved slowly backwards down the hall. "Be careful where you go in here. You don't have any shoes, and there's broken glass everywhere."

Toby watched him until he was gone in the lengthening shadows. He frowned, and continued on his exploration.

Jareth reminded him of Anna, in a way. Anna loved being in control. Even in psych lab their final year of college, she had run the show. She also laughed at Toby for being so emotional. The difference was, she hid her emotions even less than he did. And she expected him to do the same.

_If she encouraged that, like Jareth...if she had let me experience my life instead of trying to suppress it, maybe I wouldn't have left._

It was a lie, and Toby knew it...he would have left no matter what. Anna was nothing to him, not anymore, not for a very long time. He might have loved her once upon a time, but he didn't belong in her world, the same way he didn't belong in his own world.

The light grew brighter. Toby froze on the threshold of a tall, circular chamber. There were windows everywhere, and the setting sun glared in through them and made it hard to see. Even so, these didn't explain the sudden brightness. It wasn't until his eyes adjusted to the light that Toby realized why. The entire chamber was riddled with holes larger than anywhere else in the castle, and the walls themselves were eroding away.

There were doors everywhere in the room, with staircases leading to each one. Toby was surprisingly near the top, despite having been on one of the lower floors moments before. The stairs were everywhere, connecting at the sides and underneath one another as they led into walls, the ceiling, everywhere in every which direction. It was like an Escher photo, or a truly dizzying optical illusion.

This was the room that haunted Toby's worst nightmares.

Toby didn't even try to enter. The shakes that suddenly gripped him told him he wasn't ready yet. Instead, he turned and started back the way Jareth had gone. The halls were growing dark, painted in grays and purples now instead of dying reds and yellows. At home, he could hear the roar of traffic from the road outside the window of his and Anna's room. Even at his parents', there was the occasional rush of air as a late night worker returned home and the ever present noise of crickets and the neighborhood dogs. Here, there was nothing, not even a breeze.

Toby found himself back in the throne room, and stopped reluctantly. He had no idea where else to go. But the silence was stifling. He paced in circles around the room, replaying conversations in his head, trying to fill the silence without actually speaking.

It shouldn't have surprised him to hear Jareth's voice from the throne as he passed it for the thousandth time. "I assume you're planning to stay the night."

Toby halted again, not looking at the goblin king. "I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

"Do remember that you are the one who wished himself here." Jareth's voice carried the barest hint of amusement. Anna tried to hide her emotions that well, but it always seemed false. Toby had a sneaking suspicion that Jareth wasn't hiding anything...he really didn't feel those extremes often. "Don't blame me."

"I wasn't." Toby tried in vain to make out the faded markings on the few tapestries in the room. "Do you even sleep?"

"I'm not a fairy tale monster, Toby." Jareth's voice was very close, nearly in Toby's ear. A gloved hand landed on each shoulder. "We don't stay awake waiting for you to drop off to dreamland so we can make our move."

"No," Toby muttered without realizing it, "you save that for Sarah."

The hands tightened on his shoulders briefly before Jareth released him. The goblin king's voice was expressionless again. "Follow me."

The room Jareth led Toby to was larger than the entire duplex he could never go back to. The bed alone was larger than any he had ever seen before, an enormous canopied creation draped in a blue so deep it was nearly black. The wall opposite where they stood was mostly an opening to a balcony facing south or north...Toby couldn't tell which, only that the sky was half darkness and half pinkish twilight through the doorway. A white robe was slung over the arms of a high-backed chair to one side of the bed.

Jareth gestured distractedly. "For sleep. I imagine tomorrow you will probably want to continue your exploration of the castle and the city." The faint smile on his face resembled a smug smirk more than a little bit.

Toby raised an eyebrow that spoke volumes. "Are you going to take me for walks in the maze in my stroller, too?"

"You are the one re-exploring your memories, Toby. Not me."

"They aren't memories to me. They're just dreams. This is just like being thrown into a waking dream. Don't mock me for not needing to see proof of that firsthand."

"Believe it, Toby. This is all real." Jareth's eyes glinted in the dark light like silver coins. For a moment, they seemed more real than everything surrounding both men, even Toby himself.

"I believe it." Toby crossed his arms. "I was looking for a sign that I was crazy for believing it." He tossed his head, indication the whole the room, the castle, everything outside in one gesture. "I haven't seen anything that goes contrary to what I...what I remember. Therefore, I must be crazy."

_Not like that's a bad thing at all. I was plenty crazy before leaving Anna, why not now?_

Jareth nodded. "Madness can be preferable to reality."

Toby wondered what would bring this man to say such things. Toby knew why he himself wanted this place to be real. It seemed as if Jareth wished it weren't.

"Have a pleasant night," Jareth said as he turned to leave. Toby lifted a hand in farewell, then sat on the bed. He didn't reach for the robe draped on the chair, nor did he start undressing for the night. He instead debated throwing what felt like a totally irrational temper tantrum at the now-absent goblin king.

He didn't like feeling like he was being babied, as if he couldn't take care of himself at all in this place even without having been back in twenty years. He didn't want to be seen as a child in Jareth's eyes, and he didn't want to be inseparable from the sister who had saved when he was too young to even know if he'd needed saving or not.

That was rational enough. What wasn't was the frustration and anger Toby felt at Jareth's hasty exit. They'd almost been arguing. Toby wasn't comfortable arguing...he always felt like his words didn't convey what he meant whenever it was important that they did. A faint breeze had picked up outside, so even the silence was no longer so absolute. There was no reason for him to want to rage at Jareth for leaving, no reason to want to scream and rain reproaches on his head to stay longer, or to at least finish their nonexistent discussion before leaving, but Toby want to all the same.

With supreme effort, he throttled the urge, and began to prepare for the night.

The morning brought more of that sickly sunlight, and the best view of the labyrinth below that Toby had yet seen. Yellow and dry, the stone walls beckoned.

Without bothering to ask, Toby began searching for a way into the labyrinth itself.

The city surrounding the castle was deserted, and in shambles. Half of the buildings had entire walls punched through, or roofs that were totally collapsed. He wondered what had happened to this place...the subtle aging and crumbling within the castle could easily be attributed to age, but the goblin city looked like it had been through a war.

Toby kicked a few stones and pieces of rubble from his paths as he wandered towards the tall wall around the city. As the debris became larger, he started to pick his way through smaller streets and alleyways. The city was surprisingly easy to navigate, and completely new...Toby had never seen it before, at least not in his dreams.

_Although Jareth says they're memories...and that would make sense, wouldn't it?_

Toby stopped suddenly. A large section of the wall before him had completely collapsed, leaving a gaping, rubble-filled gateway before him. Toby walked closer and peered out on either side of the wall. All he observed was a long, high-walled path with openings occasionally appearing in the walls until the path turned. Nothing more in either direction as far as he could see. Toby rubbed some of the dust from him nose, stretched his legs over the fallen wall, and headed down the left end of the path.

He was in the labyrinth.

_There doesn't seem to be much to this place at all,_ he thought as he took the first left turn he came across._ Just lots and lots of sandstone and turns._ He counted the next two left turns and took the third. _The walls aren't even than high, I bet if I jumped a few times I could pull myself up onto the top of them. Sarah had to navigate this? Some challenge._

Five left turns later, he took the sixth. His freshman psych class had done a unit on mazes and what they revealed about individual thinking and the minds of those who created them. The most common pattern was to turn left, and to have a mathematical equation for the location of the path. He'd noticed most complex mazes meant to keep people away from a tangible goal followed the same equation: take the first left turn, go two more, take the third, go five and take the sixth...the distance between each turn was the sum of the previous distance plus one. He assumed it would hold true for this maze. The whole situation came out of a story, after all, so if there was a time when formula would definitely apply, this was it.

Eleven turns, take the twelfth.

He turned the corner, and stopped. He should have been able to see the castle over the walls. Instead, it seemed to be behind him.

Toby's voice seemed too loud in the empty labyrinth. "What the hell?"

Suddenly, Sarah's quest didn't seem so easy after all.

Toby turned, deciding he must have somehow miscounted or taken a right turn by mistake, and found himself staring at a solid wall. His face creased with annoyance. "Oh. Great. Just peachy keen." He kicked at the stone like a sulky teenager. "Dammit."

"Life's just full o' disappointment, isn't it?"

Toby spun around at the laughter, and found himself staring at a set of two doors guarded by what looked like talking coats of arms in red and blue. He stepped back. "You weren't there a minute ago. There were more turns."

"No," one of the strange creatures, the blue one that was upside down, answered, "those are behind you."

Toby didn't turn. "That's a dead end."

"Oh, he got you there!" crowed the top red one. All four burst into another fit of hearty laughter.

Toby ran a hand through his blonde hair impatiently, and took several deep breaths. "Okay, look. This place apparently can't be counted on to follow any rules of logic, am I right?"

He didn't wait for an answer. Instead, he looked at the sky, then at the backs of his hands. "So no matter what I do, I'll end up lost without help. Well, this was a supremely stupid plan."

"No arguments here."

"Shut up."

Surprisingly, the door guards did so.

Toby crossed his arms and tapped his feet. "Well. You guys will just have to help me, then. I just wanted to explore, but I don't want to stick around in this maze forever, so you may as well tell me how to get back to the castle."

"Through one of these doors," Top Blue replied.

Bottom Blue peered out from underneath him. "But we should warn you that one of these leads to the castle while the other leads to..."

Top Blue sang out a series of doomed music.

"...Certain Death."

All four creatures let out an awed "ooo." Toby rolled his eyes. "Right, certain death or success, got it. Let me guess, only one of you can tell me which door is which.."

There was a moment of silence as all four faces looked at one another. After a stiflingly long moment, all four spoke in mild surprise. "That's right."

"Of course." Toby sighed. "Formulaic fairy tales. The real ones were better. I suppose one of you always lies, and the other always tells the truth, too?"

This time the silence was longer. Toby blinked, and raised his eyebrows. "I was kidding."

"You were still right," Bottom Red proclaimed sulkily.

Toby shrugged. "Not my fault?"

"Well then." Bottom Red sounded put out as well. "Which one is it, then? Which one will it be?"

Toby began to pace. This was so silly...but he hadn't intended to get lost, and regardless of if he figured out how to get past the dead end behind him, he doubted any of his other turns would be in the same place. He didn't seem to have much choice but to suffer these clichéd guards. "All right. Ugly Number One, the blue guy on the top there."

There was a series of indignant gasps, which Toby ignored. "Which door leads to the castle?"

Top Blue blinked, and exchanged glances with the other three before answering. "His does."

Toby let out a nervous breath. That was the only answer that could have helped him. "Right. I'm taking the other guy's."

The chorus of whispers between heads began again. Toby didn't wait to see what they would say to him. He wasn't in the mood for door guards who couldn't even think for themselves. He pushed against the red door, stepped through-

-and found himself standing before Jareth on a balcony high on the castle.

"Well, Toby." Jareth's lips curved slightly. "Did you enjoy my labyrinth?"

Toby looked deep into those eerily beautiful eyes. He was still annoyed at the goblin king from the previous night. The part of him that was still a young boy, the part that he hadn't quite lost after college, wanted to snap off some sarcastic retort. He thought about telling him it was a piece of cake, no problem, too easy by far.

Except that was something Sarah or Anne would do.

Toby stared at the goblin king straight on. "It sucked, and you cheat. No one could solve that unless you wanted them to."

Jareth's lips twitched again, and he leaned back against the wall to stare at Toby with mild amusement and something else Toby couldn't quite read as the sickly sun climbed higher over the dry and dying world.


	3. Chapter Three

Author's Note: I've been waiting for this chapter! History, insight into Jareth's attitude, and the entry of Sarah into the story! YAY!!!! As always, reviews are always appreciated, feedback requested and taken into consideration, and blatant flaming sent to line my birdcage. Enjoy!

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Chapter Three

If that's all you will be, you'll be a waste of time.

-Guster, "Two Points For Honesty"

Toby ran a hand over his face and wondered if there were any mirrors in this place clean enough that he could see his reflection. He didn't really need to see his face…it was more habit than anything else that had him wishing for a mirror. After all, three days anywhere without a razor would leave him needing to shave.

He sank back into the pillows, buried himself deeper in the sea of blankets and softness, and turned his head towards the balcony. The sun was already high in the sky, yet it still looked as if it were just past dawn, or nearing twilight. There was a darkness in the sky, a lack of daytime brightness that left him feeling too tired to get out of bed. He'd stayed in the castle the previous day, curious about the labyrinth and the city but too annoyed by his encounter with the door guards and practical about his ability to find his way out of the maze again to try exploring again. Instead, he had spent the day wandering the palace again, searching for rooms that he didn't remember, and for keys to his own memories in the rooms that were already too familiar.

He remembered that when he was younger, his parents would talk about how he was such a curious child. He had to analyze everything, from the toys he took from Sarah's room time and time again to the designs on the cutlery in their kitchen to the wires behind the television and entertainment systems. At school he'd gotten in trouble almost constantly for going through other children's desks until he decided that they had nothing to really interest him. His science teachers loved him. His math teachers deplored him. Psychology had fit him like a glove in college simply because there was never an end to the things he could explore in the human mind.

He had to have answers to everything, but he never wanted to know all the answers.

Toby stretched his arm over his head and let his gaze drift back to the canopied ceiling above his bed. His fingers closed, opened again as he stretched a little in bed. His eyes fluttered closed again for just a moment.

He'd gotten all the answers he could from the castle itself. The only room he hadn't checked over seemingly thousands of times over the last few days was the one with all the staircases, the Escher room, the room that he still couldn't quite bring himself to enter. He'd gotten all he could from the castle, but nowhere near the answers to everything he needed. He needed to talk to Jareth.

The only problem stemmed from the fact that the goblin king had been nowhere to be found. It wasn't as if Toby hadn't already searched for him. The castle was fascinating, like taking a trip into his own mind, but he didn't want to wander through it alone.

He'd never been alone in the dreams, after all, and even those seemed empty without Jareth at least lurking in the shadows.

Toby opened his eyes again before the image of Jareth could swim before his eyes. He'd been self-reliant most of his life, a loner. This sudden dependency on someone he'd never really known except in half-remembered dreams disturbed him. He didn't want to dwell on it.

He knew his initial instincts were right, though. He had to talk to Jareth. He needed to hear the full story.

Toby sat up slowly, shivering as the air touched his bare chest. He reached for the robe, wrapping it snugly around himself as he stood, and started down the halls towards the throne room.

He saw no reason to wait.

-----------

Jareth fixed him with an amused gaze as the young man entered in nothing more than the robe he'd been left, blonde hair tousled from sleep, eyes sharp and demanding. Toby nearly ignored the patronizing stare, then squared his shoulders and held out a hand matter-of-factly. "It's hardly my fault that you didn't see fit to leave me clean clothes in addition to the fabulous food and five-star hotel room. Am I not tipping you enough?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Jareth raised an eyebrow. Toby was sure he was just humoring him, and chose not to rise to the bait. After a beat, the goblin king swung his legs off of the armrests of his throne and leaned forward over his knees. "Something the matter, Toby?"

"Ant in my Wheaties this morning. I wanted to speak with the head chef personally." Toby crossed the room to stand just before where Jareth sat. He refrained from crossing his arms, endless lectures on body language running through his head ceaselessly. Keep it all open...that's what he had to do. He wouldn't get any answers if he sent out any signs that he wasn't being completely open himself. "We should talk."

"Should we?"

Toby felt his eyelid twitch in annoyance. "Yes. I want to know what happened last time I was here. I don't dr--I don't remember things like this. The castle, the sky, the other, um, creatures..." He spread his hands, indicating everything around them. "It hasn't been that long, at least not long enough for everything to fall apart like this, and for everyone, absolutely everyone, to disappear. What happened?"

"Now Toby, I'm still here," Jareth pointed out with clearly feigned insult.

Toby's skin felt too tight for a moment. "That's not..." He took a slow breath through his nose, trying to calm himself a bit. There was no reason for him to suddenly feel like he had to justify himself with such fervor. "Everyone except for you, I meant. And those guards in the labyrinth outside. Maybe there are others left, I don't know. But there isn't anyone else in the city or the castle, and that alone is strange." He raised an eyebrow. "And anyway, you're deflecting. Will you answer my question?"

The goblin king fixed him with an amused gaze. He waved his fingers languidly in the air, almost as if he were rolling an invisible quarter back and forth over them. "That depends. You said you wanted to know what happened when I took you the first time to lure your sister here, yet you also want to know what happened to this place."

"That's right."

"The problem," Jareth continued, "is simple. Did it occur to you that maybe the reason you don't remember this place the way it is now could be because your sister took you home before any of it happened?"

Toby opened his mouth, then closed it. After a moment, he spit out his response, not bothering to conceal his annoyance and the faint stain of hurt that unfurled inside him at those stupid, patronizing words. "No. It did not."

Jareth's lips quirked the slightest bit, and he crossed his legs the other way. "So which would you rather I answered?"

"You're a prick," Toby suddenly burst out, "did anyone ever tell you that? You are a serious pain." He bit back on the words furiously, nostrils flaring in anger and frustration. "All right, so none of this happened until after Sarah took me back again. I don't believe for a second that the two are mutually exclusive, so you had better just give me an answer to both questions."

Jareth swung off the throne and strode right up to him in one fluid movement, so quickly Toby didn't even think to step away. He wasn't much taller than Toby, but just enough so that the young man had to look up to meet his eyes. When he spoke, his words were clipped and freezing cold. "You should be more careful how to speak here, Toby." He levied Toby with a significant stare. "Do you understand?"

Toby didn't flinch, though his heart pounded almost painfully. "The two aren't separate from one another. They're connected. I'm right."

"Stop." Jareth held out a silencing hand between them, face still expressionless, voice still cool enough to put skin on a glass of ice water. "I'm giving you one last chance, Toby."

Toby breathed in slowly, counting to six, and exhaled, blowing his bangs off of his forehead. "All right." He lifted both his eyebrows knowingly. "Tell me what made things here change so much."

Jareth stepped back, and his eyes flickered with small fires. Toby smirked for a moment before wiping his face clear again. It took him a moment to speak again. He had to wait until the urge to laugh passed. "You can't answer that without telling me about the other time I was here."

"What did you call me again?" Jareth snapped, clearly annoyed. "Oh, yes. A prick and a pain. The same goes for you."

Toby shrugged with mock innocence and resignation. "Oh well."

Jareth's eyes fixed onto Toby's, sharp with anger, but Toby didn't move. After a moment's tense silence, the goblin king stalked back to his throne and dropped softly into it. He draped his arms over the sides and leaned onto one elbow, gaze still fixated on Toby. "This isn't one of your sister's fairy tales."

"Thank god," Toby muttered under his breath with some bitterness.

"It might seem like one at first, but it isn't anymore." Long fingers brushed against Jareth's temple delicately. "How do these things start?"

Toby didn't intend to speak, but the words breathed out between his lips anyway. "Once upon a time."

Jareth raised his eyebrows, and the annoyance in his eyes began to fade. "If you'd like. Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl." He paused, voice rising and falling musically. "You may have heard this one before."

Toby frowned, brows knitted. "Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl who had to take care of a rotten little baby," he answered dryly. "The goblin king had fallen in love with the girl and when she wished for the kid to disappear, he took him away and the girl had to go find her way through the labyrinth to the castle in the goblin city before some time. If she didn't, the baby would be turned into a goblin too. You're playing with me again. Stop it."

"Ah." Jareth raised his head up again, gaze completely serious. "But suppose the beautiful heroine failed? What if she decided she didn't want to rescue the child in the first place?"

Toby's mouth opened, then snapped shut. He tried to catch himself, put his mind back on track. But this...the goblin king couldn't be saying these things, couldn't mean what Toby thought he meant. "Sarah came and found me."

"Toby, for five whole seconds can you pretend the world does not revolve around you?"

No, it apparently revolves around Sarah came the automatic response, but Toby didn't speak it. Even still, the thought sent a wave of burning frustration through him. He hoped the goblin king didn't notice.

Jareth dropped the hand he's been resting upon onto the arm of his throne and drummed his fingers there thoughtfully. "So. The child became a goblin, but not the same as the other goblins in the city because he was once human. You have such power that you don't even realize exists, all humans do. It's why they make such excellent rulers, both in your world and this."

"How many times?" Toby broke in. "How many times has this happened?"

"Now, Toby, how would I know that?" Jareth raised an eyebrow. "I was still a child myself the last time a goblin king stole his heir."

He lifted a hand, stilling anything Toby might've said in response. "Now, what you must realize is that our life spans are not unlimited. We can't wait forever for the right girl to learn the words that will send her and the child to us. We wait for her, the whole world waits. We sleep," he breathed, "until she speaks the words that wake us."

"Sarah didn't just let you take me." The words wouldn't stay trapped behind Toby's teeth any longer. "She beat the system."

"She was supposed to stay." Jareth all but spat out the words. "Whether or not she found you wouldn't have mattered. She was supposed to stay here. This place is hers, she woke us, and when she took you home everything was ruined!" He was up and standing before Toby in the blink of an eye, one arm thrown out and fisted. "I did everything to keep her here and she still left with you."

A pain shot through Toby suddenly, a flash of fear and hurt. Jareth blamed him. He was the reason Sarah had left.

It wasn't my fault...if I had my way, if I'd been old enough I would've told her to leave me here. She would've gone home anyway, it's not my fault!

"Well." Jareth stepped back, crossed one arm across his chest and rested his elbow upon it. His upraised hand clearly said there was nothing more to discuss, but his voice was mild, full of false questioning. "Does that answer your question, Toby?"

-----------

Toby stood in the Escher room. He was cold, shaking, and his breath didn't seem to be coming easily enough.

But he was inside.

The staircases everywhere really did seem like an Escher painting. It wasn't just the stairways, it was the openings, the landings, everything. It was dizzying to look at, but Toby stared nonetheless. It was easier than looking around and being tempted to walk through one of the doors out of the room.

Jareth had yet to come looking for him here. Everywhere else Toby went in the castle to try and think, to just forget the sudden overwhelming waves of hatred and despair, Jareth was there. And that was precisely what he was trying to get away from.

What is it with me, anyway? Toby breathed in slowly through his nose and exhaled shakily from his mouth. There was no reason for him to feel so down over how the goblin king felt about him. If he were in the same position, he probably would feel resentment, too. Of course, he'd be more rational about it, wouldn't blame the child for the young woman's decisions, but he could understand where Jareth was coming from. Did he hate Sarah for betraying him as well?

Their situations were different, but there was enough that was similar that Toby could sympathize. And yet, the sheer depression that had descended when he realized that Jareth blamed him...

It made no sense. _Jeez, I'm acting like a whiny teenager caricature._

There was a clatter from the courtyard outside as a stone crumbled off the castle and broke over the ground. Toby jumped, heart pounding. The noise wasn't unusual, he'd heard it several times in the four days or so he'd been in this world, but his nerves were shot, standing in the room that was the center of every one of his worst nightmares. He wrapped his arms around himself and took two steps closer to the edge of the landing where he stood, away from the door. Now that he was in, he wasn't leaving until he confronted those inner demons. He might be hiding from one fear, but now that he was here he could at least be productive.

The center. That was always the part he could never see. The bottom of the stairwell, the source of the terrifying sound, that shattering glass. That was where it all happened.

Toby dropped to his knees and crawled to the edge, breathing hard, pulse hammering in his throat. He leaned over, trying to see down to the bottom. Something glinted there, in the fading, sickly sunlight, but he couldn't make it out.

The deafening noise of his dreams roared in his ears. Toby ignored it. _This is where she took me home. That's why it's worse than the rest of the castle. She broke the world here._

There was another clatter and Toby whipped his head around so quickly it hurt. He winced, and peered through the doorway. Were there shadows there?

Nothing more stirred. None of the shadows shifted. Toby turned back to the ledge and pushed himself to his feet. He could take the stairs, but who knew where he'd end up? Better to cut right to the chase.

Closing his eyes tightly and trying to remember to breathe, Toby jumped.

At first there was nothing except the wondering thought that he hadn't hit the ground. Toby took a moment to wonder how deep the room was, and everything flipped upside down. He clapped his hands over his ears as those deafening, indefinable sounds crescendoed around him, and his stomach flipped madly as everything around him spun. He was too afraid to open his eyes. This had to be a dream. Any moment, he'd wake up back in Sarah's room in their parent's house.

Wings beat against him, painful and lashing. The air was freezing cold, bells clanged in the midst of all the noise, and Toby crashed against something soft and yielding and opened his eyes.

He was back in Sarah's room.

It took a moment for his head to stop spinning. Toby sat up and looked around the room critically, as if daring it to change, to reveal its unreality. The toys and dolls stared blindly back at him from false eyes and the book resting open on the edge of the bed fell with a faint thump to the floor, but it was real enough. This was Sarah's room. He was back.

Back home with bare, cut feet, days worth of dark gold stubble on his cheeks, and wearing a white robe twisted around him from the fall.

Toby stood, unsteady, and stumbled back to his own room. He peeled the robe off and threw on a pair of boxers before collapsing onto the bed. His head hurt...everything hurt. He felt sick. Sleep. Sleep was the cure. This would make sense if he slept.

As Toby's eyes drifted closed, he glanced at the clock on his bedside table. It was 5:42 am on the same day he'd left.

The creaking of his door woke Toby from a deep, dreamless sleep. He groaned and flung an arm over his eyes as bright light slipped through his cracked lids and blinded him.

"Or you can sleep through dinner, if you'd rather." An amused, female voice drifted over to his ears, and Toby opened his eyes. She'd cut her hair again, and while she looked younger than her 30-some years, he still thought she seemed older than last time he'd seen her.

"Morning, Toby," she chirped. "Mom and Dad thought you might like to see me and the kids."

Toby sat up, and bitterness churned in his stomach. "Hey, Sarah."


	4. Chapter Four

Author's Note: All right! I've been planning this chapter since...wow, since before I finished Chapter One. I've held off on thinking about it too much, so I didn't shortchange other chapters, but yeah, this is the one where I actually get to kick off some major plot stuff...namely the whole shounen-ai thingie . Anyway, this chapter we get to see Toby and Sarah interact (finally!), find out what Sarah thinks about this whole situation, and...interesting things happen near the end. Just read and see! And as always, reviews and feedback are much appreciated. Thanks!

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Chapter Four

There are so many things to show to you.  
-"A Drop of Colour"

The two girls shrieked gleefully in the living room downstairs. Sarah gazed over the railing at them fondly for a moment before turning back to her brother with a soft smile. "I never thought I'd enjoy being a mother so much."

Toby leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, looking over his shoulder away from her. "You're good at it. Always telling stories."

Sarah laughed, and Toby could see her wide smile without even turning. "Yeah. You were good practice, I guess."

"And of course," he continued without expression, "they're very aware that they're all just stories. Make-believe. Nothing real."

"Well not yet. That takes all the fun out of it." Sarah walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, Toby, don't be so serious. The kids still believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. I'm not a total killjoy!"

She was joking again. She'd never understood that she'd betrayed him all those years ago, going back on the magic in her tales and leaving him the only one still believing that their world was just a scrim hiding them all from something more. For all he knew, she didn't even know he thought these things. Toby pulled away and wandered into his parents' room, drifting over to the bay window and standing there, staring outside. He heard the faint sigh behind him, and Sarah's footsteps soft on the carpet as she followed.

"So what happened with you and Anna?"

The sky outside was pale blue, the beginnings of twilight. It looked unreal, like the backdrop in a play. Toby's eyes flicked back and forth over the images outside and willed them to change. "We grew apart."

"Toby, you told Dad that she kicked you out."

"So what if she did?"

"Toby!" Sarah's voice rose and carried a note of concern in it...but it was adult concern, motherly concern, the sort of tone his parents had used on him when he came home with a bad grade or refused to talk at dinner. Concern buried beneath commands. "Can't you just tell me what happened?"

Toby clenched his hands on the knees of his jeans and fought the urge to press them against the window, to try and push through the glass into the other world he now knew for certain was there. Why didn't she just leave him alone? She'd stopped helping him when he was still in elementary school. He hadn't told her anything real since he realized she was the same as everyone else, believing in what was false and dismissing everything else. Yet his parents still called her every time, like she did any good, when all that did was make him retreat further and further into himself and wish Sarah gone more and more. "We fought. I said I wanted something else from life, not to just be the good post-college husband with a nice house, two-point-five kids and a dog named Spot. She told me I was too emotional, that she was sick of a man who wanted a fantasy world over a perfectly good real-life future, threw her ring at me and ordered me out. End of story. Not like I care."

A hand rested on each of his shoulders. Sarah's hands were so small, _she_ was so much smaller that Toby, and yet she was foremost in everyone's eyes while he was still a little, helpless child. His parents, his friends, the rest of the family, Jareth...

The thought of the goblin king made Toby's stomach turn over. The wave of longing for the goblin castle that buried him was more intense than anything else he'd experienced. He wanted to go back, he wanted to return to those dead, empty halls and the enigmatic, frustrating as hell goblin king, he wanted to fill the castle with sound and music again and get away from this woman and the eerily perfect children downstairs and everyone else in the world he was currently trapped in again. Trapped...because he wasn't sure if he could get out again.

At the same time, a slow rage boiled up inside him. How dare they all worship Sarah like they did? How dare they, when just past the scene in the window was an entire land she was responsible for destroying without a second thought? When Jareth still pined for her despite everything she'd done? When she'd ruined her little brother's life without ever realizing it? When she'd taken him away from Jareth-

What am I thinking?

Toby's heart raced for a moment, and he took a few shallow, slow breaths through his nose. Whatever the weird thoughts that started racing through his head whenever he thought of Jareth meant, now was not the time to think about it. Sarah's hands had tensed on his shoulders. She'd know what he was thinking, that he was upset about something, and he didn't want her to find out where he'd been.

"Toby, what's wrong?" His sister's voice was soft, truly concerned this time. "Why won't you talk to me?"

"I told you everything." The words came out sharper than he intended. The second they reached his ears and Sarah's hands flinched away from his shoulders in pain, Toby felt guilty. Still, he still felt the same way he had when he'd first arrived in the goblin castle and had found out what had happened to him, and who had taken him away. He couldn't forgive Sarah. He hated her with almost all of his being.

With an annoyed sigh, Toby pushed himself off the window seat and stalked past his older sister, ignoring the confused looks she sent his way as he slammed his way into her bedroom. He flung himself onto the bed, picking Lancelot up off the floor as he sank into the pillows, and stared up at the ceiling, trying not to pick up the book again...and refusing to let Jareth's face swim before his eyes.

----------

A knock at the door sent Toby gasping into wakefulness again, head swimming, eyes wide. The rolling, sensual voice in his dreams faded away along with the eerily attractive eyes, and he hissed out a curse between his teeth. _What the hell is up with me? I'm even _dreaming _about him now? What is this?_

"Toby?" The voice from the other side of the door was hesitant, shy, almost childlike and afraid. "Can I please come in?"

Sarah. Perfect. The door creaked open when Toby didn't answer, and his sister peeked in, eyes filled with uncertainly. "Toby?" she asked again, still in the same quiet, subdued tone. "I don't want to bother you, but...can you tell me what I did? You've...I've never seen you so mad at me. Please, can we talk?"

Toby sat up and set the teddy bear down on the pillows. "Guess so."

Sarah opened the door wider, but only enough that she could slip into the room before closing the door again. She tentatively sat on the edge of the bed beside Toby and stared at her hands for a moment. When she spoke, she didn't meet Toby's eyes. "What's going on exactly?"

"Oh, of course." Toby let the sarcasm drip from the air. "You want to know what you did, but you don't ask that. Just, 'What's going on?' Great way to subtly absolve yourself of responsibility."

"Toby!" Sarah's voice was choked. "I don't know what to say to you!"

"Clearly."

Sarah's shoulders shook, and she stood up. She stared at the wall for a moment, chest heaving as she took in quick, deep breaths. She glanced over her shoulder away from Toby, and a fraction of a word spilled out. "Y-"

The air of the room changed. Toby sat up straighter and mentally slapped himself. Labyrinth was still open on the edge of the bed from the previous night. Sarah's shoulders squared and she walked briskly around to the other side of the bed, picking up the book gingerly between her thumb and index finger. "Toby, what's this doing out?"

The reply was completely juvenile, but it was out before Toby knew he was going to speak. "I was reading it last night. What, it's a crime to read now?"

"Why?"

"Because it was there." Toby ordered himself to behave rationally, to act his age. "You never read it to me when we were younger. I'd never heard of it before."

Sarah turned the book over slowly in her hands. Her voice was low, almost dreamy. "No. I didn't read it to you."

She ran a hand over the worn cover, and set the book down again. "I didn't think you'd want to hear it. You had so many nightmares as it was-"

"Oh, Sarah, shut up!"

Toby's nails bit into his palms as he turned to face his sister, jaw tight with anger. "You knew what I'd think of the story if I heard it. You didn't want me to judge the moronic princess in there. You didn't want me to take the bad guy's side. You wanted to be the perfect little savior girl forever, didn't you?"

Sarah's eyes had gone startled when Toby shouted at her, and she'd taken an inadvertent step away from him again. Her mouth opened. "I...Toby, I was just trying to save..." He eyes suddenly went hard, calculating, emotionless. "What did you do?"

"You knew if I read that story I'd see through you and that princess and your schemes, you just didn't want to lose that power over me, you never-"

"How did you get there?"

"I wished myself there, you idiot. I wished the goblins would come and take me away and I wished _myself_ there." Toby wasn't sure when he'd stood up, but he leaned over the bed and jammed a finger against Sarah's sternum. "I wished myself there because you weren't a heroine when you took me home, you were a destroyer. I wanted to stay, Sarah! Jareth told me everything that happened when you left. Everything fell apart because you ditched him and stole me back just so you could play princess. Did you hear that part? It doesn't tell it in the book, does it?"

"It fell apart?" Sarah grabbed Toby's wrist. Her hand shook but her grip remained firm. "You went back, and everything fell apart, but Jareth was still there?"

Before Toby could reply, she pulled him closer, voice commanding. "Toby. Listen to me. You can't go back there. You weren't ever meant to go there in the first place." Her words were low, insistent. "He kidnapped you to get at me and I wasn't about to leave you to become a monster-"

"I wouldn't have been a monster!"

"You _would_, that's what would have happened if I'd been too late." Sarah tightened her grip. "Promise me, Toby. Promise you won't wish yourself back there."

Toby stared into her eyes, and yanked his arm back furiously. "Sarah, I hate you."

Without waiting to see her response, he turned on his heels and stalked back out of the room. "I wish I'd never come back. I've always hated you and I always will."

The door slammed on Sarah's stricken face behind him.

----------

The window. It always came back to the window. Toby stood with his knees pressed against the seat and stared out at the darkening sky. It was raining, just enough to set the world awash like a watercolor painting. It was beautiful. Toby didn't care.

He had to get back to Jareth. He had to get back to where he belonged. He didn't care how much the goblin king aggravated him, how much he wanted to wrap his fingers around that perfect neck and squeeze until Jareth collapsed beneath him, being away from him was driving Toby even more mad. He pressed his hands against the window.

I wish the goblins would take me away, right now.

Nothing.

Jareth's face wavered maddening before Toby's inner eye, his voice playing just beyond where Toby could hear. He closed his eyes and tried again, wishing harder this time. _I wish the goblins would take me away, right now!_

The window was freezing cold beneath his palms, and still nothing happened.

Jareth! Toby slammed his fists against the window. _Take me away! Take me back! You wanted me, you _had_ to have wanted me, you took me _twice_ before!_

Coppery-tasting blood pooled against his tongue, and Toby realized he'd been biting his lip in frustration. Fed up, he undid the latch on the window, pulled himself onto the seat and stood with the rain misting against his face and hands. It was rash. He didn't care. He could _feel_ the world of the labyrinth, pulsing just past the rest of the world. He just needed the key to get there.

If this didn't work, at least he'd be free of Jareth's hold.

Toby opened his eyes and stared straight ahead. He took a quick breath, held it...stepped out the window.

When he hit the ground, it was not longer raining, and he landed as softly as if he'd just hopped off the last step of the staircase. The air was hot and stale, lifeless, and when his eyes focused he could see he stood on one of the balconies outside the castle that looked down upon the labyrinth.

Jareth stood with his back to Toby, surveying his domain. Toby found himself wondering when he'd realized that the goblin king was beautiful.

Jareth turned his head, fixing Toby with a piercing gaze. His expression matched his voice when he spoke, serious, dangerous, and just short of furious. "My kingdom. It was supposed to be hers." He looked away again. "She rejected it. She turned it all away and took you home."

"You can't go back there. You weren't ever meant to go in the first place."

Toby's hands curled into tight fists at his sides, and he had to work to breathe normally.

"I gave her everything," Jareth continued, clipping the words short in barely concealed anger. "I gave her freedom, her dreams, a chance for all of this to be hers, and she threw it away."

"Sarah, Sarah, Sarah." Toby's voice was low, but the sheer fury he felt must've still come through. Jareth turned to him, eyebrows raised, expression approaching surprise. Toby met his eyes, and couldn't keep his temper any longer. "It's always about Sarah. She's all you ever talk about!"

He took a step closer to the goblin king, all but shaking in rage. "She told me not to come back, you know. She took away the book, she _forbid_ me to come back, and I did anyway. She said I was never supposed to have come here in the first place, that she always regretted sending me here because I should've been a normal child with nothing to do with this place, and here you are saying she's right!" Toby threw his hands up in frustration. "Let me tell you something, _Jareth_, something I should've told Sarah before I was stupid enough to come back. You're both liars, and you're both wrong."

Jareth's eyes darkened with anger. "I wouldn't do that, Toby."

"Do what? Tell you the truth?" Toby laughed and shook his head. "You already know the truth, even if you won't admit it. You didn't want Sarah to leave me here so she could be your queen, you just wanted to keep me. If this place had been meant for Sarah, she would've stayed. She wouldn't have had to wish me here to open her doorway." He glared at Jareth, challenging him. "I didn't need to wish myself back here again. All I did this time was open a window."

His voice rose, shouts echoing down into the labyrinth itself. "This place is mine, _you_ are mine, and even if Sarah started this whole thing, she can't have it!"

Jareth stared at Toby, face expressionless. Toby forced himself to relax his hands before his nails cut into his palm. "This place was meant for me."

His words fell heavily in the dying air. The echoes faded from the maze below them. Toby stared at Jareth, and the goblin king matched him eye for eye. When Jareth finally spoke, it wasn't at all what Toby had expected.

"Presumptuous, aren't you?" Jareth raised an eyebrow. "Telling me that I'm yours."

Toby started. He hadn't realized he'd said anything like that…but more than that, he was suddenly afraid of how Jareth would respond. Because Toby had meant it.

Jareth walked forward, closing the distance between them until he was so close they were nearly touching. He raised a hand, rested it on Toby's cheek. "How interesting."

Toby shivered beneath the touch, and wished he hadn't. Jareth had felt it. That smile bloomed over the goblin king's beautiful face. "How very interesting. Tell me, Toby...how much of that speech was bravado, and how much of it was you trying to keep me away from Sarah?"

Toby's voice was less certain now, but his words were true. "Everyone loves Sarah, and she loves them back. I've never loved anyone but her, even though everything I cared about she took away from me." Memories of a thousand stories, labeled lies and foolish dreams, flashed through his mind. "She can't take this from me. And I won't let you love her when she doesn't love you."

Jareth's expression didn't change a hair. His hand still rested on Toby's cheek. "And why shouldn't I love someone when no one loves me?"

Toby bit back the words that rose in his mind, but Jareth's eyes showed he already knew. Toby reached up a hand to cover the one against his cheek, turned his face into Jareth's palm, and briefly brushed his lips over his fingertips. He released Jareth's hand, and stepped back, focusing on a point just past Jareth's head. "That's why," he said quietly.

The labyrinth was silent as the balcony where both men stood. The air between them shimmered yellow as Toby stared back at the goblin king. Jareth matched him eye for eye. Neither spoke, neither moved...and Jareth's expression showed nothing.

A bird cried out in the sky, and Toby barely kept from flinching at the rare and unexpected sound. Jareth stepped forward, walked towards Toby...and past him, towards the castle.

Toby turned and watched him go. He jaw tensed, and his expression flickered wildly between pain, anger, devastation, confusion...everything Toby felt at the moment. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, trying to calm himself.

I'm not a child. I'm not a lovesick teenager, I won't go mope over this or run to my room like a spoiled brat. Toby counted as high as he could, and kept going even when he lost count. _I need to think about this._

He turned in the opposite direction of the castle and started down the stairs into the city. As Jareth was off doing whatever he did when Toby wasn't near, or thinking whatever thoughts had arisen from his actions moments before, Toby wandered through the labyrinth, and did his best not to think at all.


	5. Chapter Five

Author's Note: It's been forever, I know, but...well, life happens and all that happy stuff. See, shortly after putting up the last chapter, my grandfather, who I was very close to, landed in the hospital in intensive care, and just the fact that he made it through that night was a miracle in and of itself. He died about a month later, on November 16th. Needless to say, writing has kind of taken back seat for a bit while I dealt with that, and my fanfics went on hold for NaNo'04 and the end of the semester and all that too. But it's break time now, so I can get back to work! This chapter we get a closer look at Sarah and her life, we meet up with another movie character that never got enough screen time, and Jareth gets to yell at me because I didn't give him a part in this chapter. Hopefully I won't take as long to put up Chapter Six as this one, but since I have a major part in my school opera in the spring, I make no promises. Anyway, enjoy!

****

Chapter Five

_Fireball, careful with that there, see what you made me do.  
_-"Must Be Dreaming"

It didn't take long at all for Toby to realize he was lost again. He hadn't bothered following any real pattern this time when he wandered aimlessly into the labyrinth, and even if the maze itself was changing, he wouldn't have noticed. He supposed if he wanted to, he might be able to find his way back to those four door guardians, but he didn't really care either way if he made it back to the castle or not. After all, Jareth didn't even want him there.

The world was Sarah's place. No matter what, Toby was caught in her shadow. If the goblin king thought back on that day, he probably wouldn't remember Toby telling him that he was the one who had made it back without wishing it...he would remember how he could never win Sarah's love, but was stuck with her second-best little brother, the baby he hadn't even wanted badly enough as an heir to fight her for.

With a sigh, Toby leaned against a dark, moss covered wall. This portion of the labyrinth looked different than the rest. It was old, the stones and bricks stained with time and water, with vines and branches draped over the walls and cluttering the halls between them, but unlike the parts of the labyrinth nearer the castle, this place didn't look destroyed but only old. It was as if it were accustomed to being neglected, used to the dying sickly sunlight and breathless winds that whistled through the paths. It was still there, and quiet. So was the rest of this world, but here...here, Toby wasn't afraid of the silence. It wasn't the stifling, suffocating silence of the castle or the center of the labyrinth. It was just quiet, waiting, ready to spring to life but not in any rush to do so.

The walls were cooler here, slick and a bit slimy, but Toby turned his head to the side to rest his cheek against the faint chill anyway. Slick to the touch or not, it was soothing. The castle seemed too warm most of the time, even in the shadows. Only at night, when almost nothing looked the same, did it feel cooler and more open. Toby kept his eyes open and stared down the pathway he had been following. He couldn't see any turns anywhere down the line. Come to think of it, he hadn't made any turns in quite some time. He must be going in a straight line.

"'Alo!"

Toby didn't turn his head, but his eyes tracked back to just opposite where he sat. Something very small was reared back on an outcropping brick, no larger than a bug. Toby sat up, curious, and leaned forward for a closer look. It was a worm, or something very like it, though like nothing Toby had ever seen. It had a shock of ultraviolet hair reminiscent of a lion's mane, for starters, had mottled blue and green skin, and was certainly larger than any worm he'd ever seen. Still...it didn't have any limbs or exoskeleton. A worm or caterpillar was close enough. "Hmm?"

The worm waved back and forth again as it spoke, just as cheerfully as before. "'Alo!"

Toby blinked and his nose twitched. "...I'm talking to a worm with a cockney accent," he muttered in disbelief.

"'Ow now, 'snot tha' unusual, now, is it?" The worm didn't seem offended, just amused. "You're doin' quite well if it is."

"Thank you," Toby answered without thinking, and wondered why he even bothered being surprised. "Um...hello back."

The worm bobbed again as if pleased. "Don't get many visitors 'round 'ere no more. Wot's your name?"

"Um, Toby?"

"Tooooby is it?" Nothing seemed to faze this worm, and so far everything seemed to please it. It leaned forward a bit, hair moving a bit in the miniscule breeze it created. It probably should have been creepy, but not enough to put Toby off at all. "Weeeeell, then, please t'meet you, Toby! 'Ope you're feelin' well today!"

"I..thank you, yes I am." This was strangely more surreal than anything else Toby had encountered here yet. The door guardians had been weird and annoying as hell, but they fit into this sort of tale easily enough, and Jareth...but he wasn't going to think about Jareth. He didn't want to. Everything else made sense within this world, but a cheerful little worm creature wishing him good day just didn't mesh. "Do...do you have a name?"

"'Oo, me? No, no." The little creature shook its head philosophically. "Just a worm. Saaaay, why don't you come on inside and 'ave a nice cup a' tea?"

"I..." Toby studied the wall, but he couldn't find any holes or cracks to indicate where "inside" was. "I think I'd be a bit too large to fit."

"Oh, noooo, things aren't always wot they seem in this place." The worm wiggled its segmented body forward a little more on the brick. "Come on inside, meet the missus. We're just about to set down for tea."

Toby still hesitated. "I can't even see where your home is, Mr., ah, Mr. Worm."

If it was possible, the worm glowed. "_Mister,_ 'e says! Imagine that! Well, now, Toby, it isn't too far, just a quick trip through that 'ole there and we'll be inside and just as cozy as you please."

Toby followed the shake of the little creature's head and blinked at the head-sized hole that seemed to appear _between_ the brick. His eyes widened, and he stood, moving towards it for a closer look. "Where did..."

"Things aren't always wot they seem in this place," the worm repeated cheerfully.

With a faint nod, Toby reached towards the hole, and suddenly everything fell into place as his hand passed between the bricks. It was an illusion; the wall wasn't solid at all, but two walls, one in front of the other, with the bricks matching up so perfectly that they disguised the pathway running between them. _So that's where all the turns went_, he mused to himself, then turned back to the worm. "That's still too small of a hole for-"

The brick was empty. The worm was gone.

Toby stared at the empty space for a moment, then sighed. He shouldn't have been surprised, really. With the way things were going in this world, at least that he had seen so far...

"Well, come on then!" A voice behind his head made Toby turn to find the strange little bug peeking out of the hole at him. "Tea won' be 'ot forever you know!"

"When did you get there?" Toby blurted out without thinking.

"Took the back door o' course! Come on, come on!"

Toby started to protest again, and his own words suddenly echoed back in his head. _This place is mine_... "Just a second," he replied, studying the bricks. The hole was a little above his head, and he'd need a bit of a boost to even see in. The wall was old, but it looked solid enough, and the bricks weren't crumbling away much at all. Toby grabbed the end of the hole and carefully pressed a foot against the wall, hoisting himself up just high enough off the ground to be eye level with the hole.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting on the floor of a cavern about the size of a hotel bathroom, knees tucked up to his chest, staring down at a table no larger than the palm of his hand and its two occupants. He hadn't even put a whole hand into the hole and he was sitting inside a cavern within a wall that couldn't possibly be there, watching two fantastical worms drink tea.

They didn't even have arms. For some reason, the realization struck Toby as outrageously funny, and he had to fight to keep from bursting into hysterical laughter.

"'Alo!" His friend from outside bobbed up and down in greeting. "Glad t'see you made it, Toby! Meet the missus."

The other worm, who matched her counterpart except for more violet skin and lime green hair, repeated the gesture. "Well meet I'm sure. Tea?"

"Ah...sure.."

Toby never was sure where the third cup came from, especially since it was only a bit smaller than the table. The female worm pushed it towards him with her entire body, and smiled up at him. "Drink up, drink up. We don't 'ave many visitor 'ere, do we?"

"Nope, 'ardly ever," Toby's friend replied chirpily. "Not since that girl a bit back."

"Girl?" Toby hesitated with the teacup halfway to his lips. His curiosity about how it would taste evaporated quickly. "What girl?"

"Oh, that was a bit back, dozen years or more I believe." The blue worm dipped his head to his cup and appeared to take a small sip of tea. "Long, long time ago it was, at any rate. This young girl came by lookin' for the castle, asked me for 'elp. Bit too trusting, though, she listened when I tol' 'er not to go the way that led right to it. I wanted to 'elp 'er, poor girl, but rules are rules."

Toby set the cup against his knee. "What do you mean?"

"'Ee just means we're not allowed to 'elp the girls is all," the other worm answered. "We can be as friendly as y' please, but anyone 'oo 'elps the girls is breaking the rules you see."

That made sense. It would also explain why they were being so friendly to him. Toby took a sip of the tea, and was pleasantly surprised to find it very good, tasting of honey and something minty and sweet. He took another, larger drink, and savored it. "What did this girl look like?"

"Well, now, she was a young thing wasn't she?" The male worm seemed to be thinking hard, for his movements suddenly ceased. "Oh, yes! She was younger than you, master Toby, by quite a bit I'd say. Tall, I'd say, wearing a most peculiar outfit too. She 'ad such lovely long dark 'air, I remember that for certain."

_Sarah._ It figured. She must have passed by here looking for him all those years past. "So there are rules here."

"O' course, tons of them!" It was getting harder and harder to tell the two worms apart. They moved around so much that Toby kept losing sight of them and they sounded almost identical anyway. "That's just the biggest one."

"So you two know how to get to the castle then."

"Naturally."

Toby finished his tea without even realizing it. "How far away is it, if I may ask?"

"Weeeeeell..." The two worms looked at each other before one-Toby was fairly sure it was the blue one from outside-answered. "I suppose you can. Maybe we can tell you. I don't think there rules say anything 'bout that."

"It's far, and close by, depending which way you go," the other one added. "You're at the front of the labyrinth, you know, but you can always take a shortcut."

"Oh." Toby nodded as if he understood when he was completely lost. "I see."

"Now, you aren't leaving so soon are you Toby?"

Toby almost said yes, and remembered the look on Jareth's face the last few times he'd seen the goblin king. The only reason to go back would be for himself. He might as well never have returned in the first place. "No, I'll stay a bit longer." He lifted his cup to his lips and was surprised to realize it was empty. "Do you have any more tea?"

"Oh, dear, I'm afraid we don't!" cried the purplish girl worm. "I wasn't expecting company you know, and you drink rather a lot you see."

"So glad you liked it, though!" her husband piped up philosophically.

"Really, it's so nice to 'ave a guest again. This place gets too quiet, it does."

"Ever since th' princess took back the prince."

Toby coughed, and nearly dropped his cup. "What?"

The blue worm looked up at him curiously. "We don' get many visitors 'ere since the last prince was taken back. Why d'you ask?"

"Nothing," Toby muttered absently. "It's nothing." He set down his cup and told himself the idea that had screamed into his inner ear right then was stupid, just wish-fulfillment on his part.

Then the other one spoke. "Yes, yes! That was about when things started t'get messy around 'ere, too, though, so can't say I blame 'em, can I?"

"No, certainly not," her husband agreed.

Toby felt as if his head were floating miles above his body. His voice sounded years and years away, quiet, tinny to his ears. "Well, thank you very much but I really should get going again soon..."

Dimly, he heard his hosts reply eagerly, saw himself as if he weren't inside his own body nodding his thanks and turning to see where the exit was. He'd been so curious only a few minutes ago as to how he had gotten inside the room in the first place and normally he would have been thrilled to have the chance to see how he got out, detached as he was...but the sudden realization that the two worms had just confirmed overshadowed everything. It might still just be wish-fulfillment, but he couldn't shake the certainty that he'd figured out the truth.

_This place didn't die when Sarah left. It died when_ I_ left._

Toby wasn't sure how long he wandered through the labyrinth in that odd haze. He vaguely heard the worms telling him a shortcut to the castle ("_Yes, of course we can tell 'im, 'ee's a boy isn't 'ee?"_) and he thought he had followed it...certainly he found himself at the gates to the castle with barely any effort. Still the words whispered in his mind. He was right. He _knew_ he was right.

It must've been bothering him from the start. Maybe that was why he had been so annoyed at Jareth's insistence that his first trip into the goblin kingdom and the ruin of the place weren't connected. Toby had already known there was something wrong with the goblin king's claims that the world was created for the young women, the fairy tale princesses who wished their charges into the kingdom and left with their dreams. After all, none of them had stayed. They had either not come to retrieve the babies or they had come, failed, or given up and gone home with their gifts from the kings of old. So why hadn't the place crumbled thousands of times before? If the reason it had fallen apart was because Sarah had left, why hadn't it happened when the others did the same?

Because the others left the new goblin princes behind. I was the only one who didn't stay, and it was the one time everything didn't fall apart.

Toby stopped suddenly and stared at the threshold he stood at. His feet had taken him to the Escher room, to the staircases, to the way home without him realizing it. Why had they done that? Why had he done that?

Toby looked around without fear this time, but with curiosity, analyzing, taking in information. The setting sunlight cast a red glow throughout the room, bathing it in dying fire and crumbling shadows. Toby's eyes traced over the barely stable ruins of the castle walls around him without hesitation. He had been the reason it had been destroyed. Perhaps he could bring it back.

Resolve set, Toby turned back to the threshold, and jumped.


	6. Chapter Six

_Author's Note: Whee for stuff. And by stuff, I mean being so busy I can't breathe again. Here's the past couple of years in a nutshell: opera rehearsal, transferring out of my college, traveling to Asia for all of May, finding a job and school in June, work in July and August, starting at my new school in September, opera September through November, a trip to the hospital followed by being forced to move without warning, harassment, and losing all of my friends in October and November, NaNoWriMo '05, my grandmother's heart attack in November, finals plus a panicked attempt at yet another college transfer and preparation for a move in the fall, NaNo '06, getting a new job and settling into the second new school in a year, NYSMF all of summer 2007, a solo recital, and NaNo '07. Whew.. So I've been too busy to write, but I'm getting back on the ball now! Now, in this chapter we see more of Toby at home with Sarah, I get to promote a bunch of great music, and we learn a boom box is all it takes to pave the way for really excellent sex. Did I say sex? I mean┘eurgh. Curses!!! Ahem. Enjoy?_

**Chapter Six**

_And if I could change this day I would.  
_-"I Would"

The last time Toby returned to his family's world (he no longer thought of it as his own in the least, or even "the real world") it had been a shock, a crash through an invisible ceiling coupled with a dizzying vertigo that ended with his violent landing. This time, he was a bit more prepared, and so only barely managed to keep from losing his balance and falling backwards onto the bed where his nieces slept peacefully despite the loud thump of his arrival.

Toby's arms pin wheeled briefly, and he grabbed at Sarah's desk to steady himself. He felt chilled. He wondered if that had happened the last time as well, some sort of side effect of passing between the two worlds.

More likely just the weather. He thought he could hear rain pattering against the roof. Toby had a strong suspicion that in Jareth's world, it no longer rained even if it needed to. The place was so dead, the weather had probably even stopped working to save it.

The door creaked slightly, and Toby glanced up sharply, eyes narrowed, heart pounding. A tiny sliver of light cut through the dark room and a slender hand curled around the edge of the door as it eased it open as slowly and silently as possible. The fingernails gleamed with pale polish in the light from the hallway, and a wedding band glinted on one finger.

_Sarah._

Toby stalked over to the door, more furious with her than he'd ever been with anyone else in all of his life. He grabbed the doorknob and yanked it open wide, without any regard to the sleeping children.

Sarah started up at him in startlement, hand hovering in the air still clutching at the nonexistent door. Her wide eyes met his so that he could easily read the fear and apology and guilt in them, see the dewy wetness that appeared in them as her lips trembled, opened, closed, and opened again. Her voice was tiny and choked as the slightest sliver of a word eked out. "He..."

His sister fell silent again and just stared at him with those scared rabbit eyes, shaking, her brown hair straggling in the humidity to fall in her face. Toby stared back at her emotionlessly, and something ran through him at the sight of her.

_Even if he saw her now, he still would rather have her._

His fury subsided into frustration and despair, and Toby silently pushed past Sarah, storming across the hall to his own bedroom, never speaking a word to her. He could hear her strangled call, probably asking him to turn around and come back, but he slammed the door behind him and locked it before sinking to the floor.

The hardwood was shockingly cold against his feet, but Toby barely noticed. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, leaned back against the door, and tried not to shake.

Thoughts tangled about in his head in a chaotic, confused, angry, depressed, shell-shocked, horrified, righteous, heartbroken mess. Toby made no effort to attempt to sort through them. He simply pushed his hands more firmly against his eyes until the pain gave him an anchor outside of himself, keeping him from getting lost in his thoughts and never being able to get out again. When his body stopped tensing to brace itself against the onslaught of shivering and reaction, he let his hands fall to his sides and opened his eyes again, staring up at the dark blue ceiling of his room, letting the shadows fall across his face and the stucco so that it traced out strange letters and faces on the ceiling above him. He did not make a sound. He only focused on breathing, slowly, slowly, forcing his mind to go blank. He couldn't think about anything at all if there was too much on his mind to separate one thought from the next.

As Toby grew calmer he became aware of a quiet, repetitive drumming in his ears. His heartbeat? No, it was too slow for that, too irregular, and he couldn't feel the sound but could only hear it. Toby edged away from the door and stood, trying to find the source of the sound, and slowly realized that someone was knocking at his door.

With a resigned sigh, Toby unlocked the door and opened it as little as he could and still be able to see who was there. "Yes? May I help you?"

If it had been one of his parents they might have retorted with annoyance at the sarcasm implied in his tone, and Sarah would have laughed and made light of the situation. Toby was not in the mood to be mocked and when he caught his sister's eye through the crack in the door he nearly shut the door in her face. Before he could, though, she spoke, and her words and voice were so unlike anything he was used to that it stopped him on the spot.

"I told Dad and Elaine that you went out for a walk when they asked where you were. You missed dinner." Sarah hesitated and reached up to push her hair behind her ears in a gesture that was almost completely unfamiliar to Toby. Part of it was because he could never remember her having hair long enough to get in her face so that she had to move it back, but more importantly it was a gesture of uncertainty, a nervous tick that Toby had never, ever seen in his sister before. And yet it seemed to be a purely unconscious reflex on her part, not something new to intentionally give her space to collect herself. Sarah had always been so composed whenever Toby was around her. The nervous, uncertain gesture was surprising enough but the fact that it was so familiar to her almost shook him inside.

"Toby..." Sarah's hands hovered by her neck in another practiced but unfamiliar gesture. "Please, can we talk? You deserve an explanation, and I de...you deserve an explanation," she finished quietly.

If the words were just empty, then at least his sister had come up with a more compelling way to present them. Toby opened the door the rest of the way to let her come into the room and closed it again the moment she was through it. There was a momentary internal struggle where he wondered if perhaps he should lock the door as well but the trail his thoughts traversed made him rather sick to his stomach at the thought. He left it unlocked and instead walked past where Sarah stood waiting for him and sat down on his bed without inviting her to join him.

For once, Sarah seemed at a complete loss for words, and Toby was not feeling charitable enough to bother prompting her to begin. That cold fist still clutched at his insides making him feel too many things at once, sorrow and anger and jealousy and despondency all at once, and he wanted to blame it all on the woman standing before him awkwardly twisting at her wedding ring while she tried to gather her thoughts again. Yet he did not even want to lash out at her because he had the sneaking suspicion that she was less the cause of all of his turmoil than the goblin king he had left behind even briefly for whatever reason.

_Why is that?_

There were a legion of answers or more to that question: maybe Toby felt so upset because the goblin king had hurt him, maybe it was because he had angered him, maybe it was because Toby did not want to be away from him (and that made him shudder internally at the very thought because that implied a level of dependency that terrified him), maybe it was because of Sarah after all, or maybe it was some combination of all of those. There was no point in sorting through them right then, however, so Toby simply leaned back on his elbows and waited silently, never taking his eyes from Sarah's face while she tried to avoid his gaze.

At last Sarah sighed and brushed her hair back behind her ears again. It took all of Toby's self-control not to demand an explanation for the gesture, but he managed. Whatever his sister was here about, it was not a strange nervous habit that he had never seen before. Though he could always recommend her to someone else about that┘his specialty was not in behavior modification, only analysis of specific words, behaviors, and actions. Plenty of his classmates had been interested in behavior modification, though. If Sarah didn't want to have that telltale tick any longer, they could easily help her.

With a start, Toby realized that his thoughts were wandering off in directions that made no sense whatsoever. That could not be a good sign. With an effort he focused on the actual task at hand again.

At last, Sarah spoke. "You probably know a little bit about what happened by now. About the...goblins taking you. When you were two."

Toby nodded, not entirely trusting himself to speak just yet.

"I was fourteen," Sarah continued with a sigh. "You probably could figure that out, but┘well. Dad had only married Elaine a few years earlier and I still resented her. You never met my mother, Toby, she never bothered to come back to see me after the first year when she left. I only ever got cards and a few birthday and Christmas presents from her. I think she was afraid to come home. Seeing Daddy happy again with someone else. Whenever she called and sent those cards it was obvious that she still loved me but she never came to see me, and Elaine didn't seem to understand me at all. She wanted me to be a miniature adult, a live-in nanny, or I thought that anyway. So I resented her for not being my mother yet, for having you and stealing away my childhood, and for keeping my mother away even if she didn't mean it. She made Daddy happy but she made me miserable."

_She doesn't realize that she's calling him Daddy instead of Dad,_ Toby noted, and pushed the thought aside with something akin to panic. That had nothing to do with anything, after all.

"I didn't hate you any more than I hated her," Sarah explained, "but I thought I did. You have to understand, Toby, before you were born I could pretend that everything was just like the fairytales Mom used to tell me when I was little, and then suddenly you were there and it wasnst anything like in the stories and Elaine kept trying to get me to become more responsible instead of being a kid. So I sort of took everything to an extreme, treating everything like it was make-believe and that she was just the evil stepmother in the stories and that you were like the bratty stepbrother that existed only to make the heroine miserable. I was jealous. You were the baby, you got all the attention, you didn't have to do anything that you didn't want to because you were so little, and you had a mother who loved you and I didn't think I did."

Sarah stopped and looked away, but this time it wasn't to hide from Toby but to compose herself again. Toby found himself feeling moved in spite of himself. He had never heard anything about Sarah before her transformation into the perfect daughter and had never seen any evidence of her being anything other than perfectly content with her life. This was like a fairytale in itself┘it was as unbelievable as anything in fantasy that Toby could think of.

_She used to play with her hair like that when she was younger,_ Toby realized. I've _seen pictures of her from when I was a baby and her hair was much longer then. She's doing it now because she _is _unhappy, like she was back then._

"I started taking out all of my anger on you and Elaine," Sarah continued when she was able to again. "I'd do anything to keep from having to be at home when I didn't have to be, I wouldn't even let you play with any of my toys or play with you when I was told to, and when Elaine started making me baby-sit you when she and Daddy went out for company dinners I thought I was being imprisoned for no reason at all. And then finally one night I snapped, you just wouldn't stop crying and Elaine and I had had a fight before she left and Daddy wouldn't even come upstairs to see how I was, so I...I didn't mean to, Toby, I thought it was just a story and I'd been playing at being the princess in the book before I came home so it was the first thing in my mind..."

Toby sat up and ran a hand through his hair with an explosive sigh. He did not look at his sister. "I get it. It's okay. No one could have guessed it would work, right?"

"Right!" Sarah sounded relieved, though the edge of nerves was still apparent in her voice. "Well, I had to go after you...I was afraid of what had happened and besides, you're my brother. I had to go after you. And then he brought me to the labyrinth...the goblin king...and...well, he's a dirty rotten cheater..."

A bitter smile ghosted over Toby's lips. "Yeah. I picked up on that."

Sarah's expression contorted into one of pain. "I hate the fact that you went back there, no matter what happened. He stole you, he cheated and did everything he could to stop me from getting to him, he even tried to kill me and the friends I made there to stop me and...he said if I didn't get to you then you would turn into a goblin, but I was afraid he would kill you before that happened rather than give you to me. And even if you were just turned into a goblin...you might not think you would have been a monster, Toby, because you've never seen any but him, but the other goblins were...just...and you would have been gone forever, Toby. I couldn't let that happen. You're my brother and I love you too much to have let you be taken away forever like that."

She was crying now. Toby wasn't sure whether to comfort her or be angry with her. He couldn't remember seeing her cry before, except for a few times in the past. When their grandfather had died when Toby was seven, when Merlin finally passed away when Toby was getting ready to start high school, when she left for college, at her wedding, maybe once or twice more. But it was never like this. She had never cried for herself, or for him, not where Toby could see.

"I got you out," Sarah managed thickly as she wiped at her eyes, "and I promised I would always protect you. But it was hard. Back here everything was the way it used to be and there were a lot of times when I felt like nothing had ever changed and I wondered why I had even bothered bringing you back. I know what Dad says, but it wasn't all at once like he makes it seem. I hated seeing you with Lancelot even though I gave him to you and I hated having to work my schedule around babysitting for you. I had to do it a lot more frequently then, because I was afraid another babysitter might make the same mistake and not be able to get you back and then how was I going to protect you? But as you got older and I got used to not being a kid all of the time, I knew I was right to have gone after you. And then you started having those nightmares and I knew┘I thought I had done the right thing for you, too. So I had to stop trying to be my mother to you. You already had a mother and she didn't really like all of the fairy tales I told you, but even if I disagree with Elaine about children and fantasy being bad for them I couldn't risk you ever going back there."

Sarah fell silent and looked down at her hands. Toby did not speak. He didn't even know what he would have said if he tried.

"You're too good to become a monster like that," she finished softly. "I didn't tell you or ever let you suspect because I loved you. Please, Toby, can you understand? I never wanted to make you so unhappy. I swear it."

Then she fell silent again and this time did not speak again

The clocked ticked the minutes away as the two waited in tense silence to see what would happen, the young man sitting expressionless on the bed and the woman standing a little ways away from him with tears drying on her cheeks. At last, Toby nodded, though what he was agreeing with he was not sure. It was reactionary gesture, nothing more, probably. The thought briefly crossed his mind that maybe he analyzed things a bit too much sometimes, but in this situation he supposed it was only to be expected. Besides, his parents were always complaining that they had wasted their money on a psychology degree that their son never seemed to use...so why shouldn't he prove them wrong and nitpick everything to death? Give them their money's worth.

_...good God, this world makes me crazy. What am I even thinking about anymore?_

"All right, then." Toby pushed himself off of the bed and stepped over to his sister to meet her gaze without blinking. "I think I understand now. Thank you."

Sarah's lips curved up in a tremulous smile and she started to reach out for him, but Toby stepped back and held up a hand. "Retraction and clarification time. I understand why you did what you did back then, why you behave the way you did towards me afterwards, why you tried to show me that there is a difference between fantasy and reality and all that stuff, and I understand why you don't want me to go back. I might even be able to forgive you for all of that, when I'm a little less angry. But I'm not two anymore, Sarah, and I make my own decisions."

The color drained from Sarah's face and her fingers clutched at the seams of her jeans in a surge of emotion. "You're going back, aren't you?"

"You can't really stop me. You can't even legally stop me." Toby couldn't stop the slightly cruel grin that spread over his face, and he wasn't even sure that he wanted to try. "I'm legally an adult, and besides, I don't think there's any precedent for trying to stop an adult from visiting another world that might not even really exist."

Sarah's fingers tightened their grip on her jeans and when she spoke her voice was harsh and short. In control again, Toby thought wryly, she was back in mother mode. But Toby was never her child, and she had no power over him. "Toby, you are not going back there."

"Watch me," he snapped back, knowing it was childish and his temper was starting to get the best of him again but not caring in the slightest. Let Sarah be controlled and rational. Toby was sick of the rational world. He had his own world, one that was all his to do with as he wished, and the so-called real world was nothing to him anymore. _To hell with rational thought. I'll think about whatever I want even if it makes no sense after all!_

"I will not! You have no idea what could happen to you there!"

"Do so." Oh, this was fun. Toby almost laughed aloud. "I've been there more than you have."

"It doesn't matter!" Sarah shouted, "You are not going back there! Not after everything I did to get your out of that place!"

Toby's amusement at the situation faded and pure anger took over. "Oh. I see. So this is all about you, then, isn't it? Selfish bitch."

Sarah's cheeks flushed with hectic, feverish color and her mouth worked soundless. Toby barreled on, pulling himself up to his full height and standing so close to her that they could almost touch without moving. "You don't care whose life you destroy, do you? Mine, Jareth's, anyone else in that kingdom, you just don't care! It has to all be about you, perfect Sarah the savior and the martyr, and it isn't always about you, it's never been about you, you only act like it is because you are nothing, do you get it Sarah? Fuck you and your bullshit hero complex! Get someone else's life! For crying out loud, get your _own!_ Just stay the hell out of mine!!

"You..." Sarah sputtered with rage, as if she were too angry to even speak properly. "I can't believe...Toby, you're the one who can't be happy with reality! You can't honestly think that place is better than staying here and living your life!"

"And you want to take it away from me!"

"Because I worked too hard to get you away from him to let you just undo it all! Jareth is..."

"Are you deaf as well as selfish?" Toby interrupted furiously. "This has nothing to do with you and it never did!"

Sarah's voice rose to a shriek. She seemed to have completely forgotten their parents or her napping daughters only a few rooms away. _"You can't go back there!"_

Toby grabbed his sister by the shoulders without even bothering to try and contain his rage. Sarah gasped under the pressure of his grip but still hissed, "Take your hands off of me or I'm telling Dad and Elaine!"

"Good to know that you can be a snotty little brat and have emotions like an actual human being, Sarah," Toby sneered back. "Don't get in my way."

He released her roughly and turned to rip the cord of his old portable boom box out of the wall. Sarah rubbed each of her shoulders with a wince and demanded, "What are you doing?"

"Bringing back something. I didn't come back to argue with you, even though I'm sure that shocks your self-centered shriveled little heart to the core. I had another reason entirely. You were the one who insisted we talk."

"Don't you-"

Toby simply tuned her out. He shoved past Sarah with the boom box cradled in his arms and hoped he had put in all five CD's the last time he used it. One disc would get repetitive very quickly, after all. Fingers clawed frantically at him as he passed and he ignored them at first.

When Sarah's nails found purchase on the neckline of his shirt and pulled back, Toby choked and nearly dropped the stereo. He pulled forward violently and Sarah let out a crap as he broke free, but he did not stop to turn or argue with her. Instead, he flung open the door again and ran for his parent's room.

As he and Sarah dashed past the stairwell Toby could hear his mother calling up the stairs, "Sarah? Toby? What's going on up there?" His father was yelling something as well, but neither of them came up the stairs at all and Toby had no desire to listen to them or risk Sarah finding a way to stop him. He could hear noises from his sister's old room where the girls must have indeed woken up as he dashed past the door.

"Toby!" Sarah yelled, and he told herself the frightened tone in her voice was just his imagination. "Toby, wait!"

He had to slow down once he was inside his parent's room. He couldn't afford to trip or misjudge the distance to the bay window. He might never get out again then. His parents would come this time, not just Sarah, and then...well, he couldn't even imagine what would happen, so he simply refused to think about it as he shifted the boom box underneath one arm and climbed onto the seat of the window using only one hand to help himself.

Toby pushed the window open just as Sarah ran into the room and realized what he was doing. He could hear her gasp behind him but did not look back. He would not look back at her. None of this had anything to do with her anymore. He had made his decision.

As Toby stepped out of the window he could hear Sarah shriek behind him in what sounded like genuine terror, and then the sound was gone in the whirling, rushing wind before impact.


	7. Chapter Seven

_Author's Note: Here you go…the next chapter, right on schedule! You guys can expect about an update a month on this, as that's what I'm shooting for…I have a bunch of fanfics going right now and if I update one a week, each one should update once a month or so…though there may be a slight delay in the next couple of chapters due to me RELEASING MY FIRST ALBUM, YAY! …ahem. So this chapter, we get to see Jareth again (finally, after how long now? Two chapters? Three years?), I get to do some crazy stuff with music, Toby gets snarky (...snarkier…), and things began to bloom. Literally. Enjoy!_

**Chapter Seven**

_I've been closed like a book and burned out like a written sin.  
_-"Not a Virgin"

The momentum of Toby's leap carried through to the goblin kingdom and instead of landing lightly as he had the previous time, he stumbled and went sprawling across the hard, unforgiving stone. As the stereo clattered to the ground beside him, he kicked himself for not realizing that there were probably no electrical outlets in the castle. How ironic would it be to have made it back here, only to have to return home to his panicked family after jumping out of a window just to get some batteries?

Toby's bare skin sang in anguish as he slid over the stones and scraped away at his limbs, but he did not go very far and the stone was so worn that it did not really hurt very much. It simply stung. Pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, he checked himself over quickly. There did not seem to be any real damage done to his person. Even the scrapes were hardly oozing blood. Toby sat up and reached for the boom box, hastily popping open the casing in the back.

Two DD batteries gleamed bronze inside their hold, and Toby let out a sigh of relief. He had no idea how long the batteries had been in there or how much life was left in them, but at least they were there. There was at least a little bit of power for the boom box to run on. Shifting the black box into his lap, Toby popped open the CD player. He didn't even remember when he had last used the thing. Whatever album was in there could be anything at all.

There was something in there, or rather two somethings. He must have put a second CD in the player without realizing there was another in there the last time he had used it, Toby realized as he pulled the two silver disc out to study them. After a moment, a triumphant grin slowly spread across his face. _Perfect._ He could not have planned this better if he had tried.

For the moment, Toby decided that the second disc could wait and tucked it snugly in one of the pockets of his flannel overshirt. The other, though…he could not resist. At the start of his college career, one of his classes on psychology in modern literature had spent a unit on an experimental horror novel about a house that was slightly bigger on the inside than out. The book had bored Toby somewhat with the sheer amounts of pure artistry in it, but he had been impressed by the effect that it seemed to have on so many others, even more than most haunted house tales. When he learned that the author had a sister, s singer called Poe, and that she had recorded an album that went almost entirely along with the novel, he had been curious enough to buy it. Toby had never regretted the decision to do so.

What better soundtrack for a dying world?

At last Toby looked around to see where exactly he was. It seemed as though the bay window did not always open to the same place in the goblin king's castle each time, unless his momentum had resulted in his arrival inside the castle rather than on the same terrace as before. The reason was not important, though. It was inconsequential. So Toby wiped it from his mind, tucked up the power cord tidily, flipped the power switch, and pressed play.

The low, distant rumble that opened the album sent dark shivers through his veins, and Toby fancied he could almost hear the echoes off of the crumbling castle walls. But no, that was only the reverb on the CD itself, added in for atmosphere. With a grin of anticipation, Toby reached for the volume knob and twisted it viciously.

The booming crash echoed in the hall so loudly that it sounded as though the castle itself were making the sound. Each following groan from the recording surrounded Toby completely, enveloping him in haunted creaks and whispers until the entire goblin realm seemed to throw them back towards him. Everything was no longer dying…it sounded as though it were already dead. But to Toby, the resounding echoes spoke of life. The dying city did not simply steal away the echoes and let them fade. The sound was alive, and something was sending to back to him.

The sound of a woman singing sadly on an ancient vinyl record emerged from the speakers and the walls around him began to speak as they reverberated her tragic words back again. Toby closed his eyes and looked up towards the ceiling drinking it at all.

And then the moment was broken by someone speaking to him. "What is that noise?"

Toby opened his eyes and gazed at Jareth's face with the same pleased half-smile on his face. "A haunted house."

The goblin king's expression was an interesting mix of annoyance and curiosity as he spoke. "What was that?"

"I'm listening to a haunted house." Toby's lips twitched as his smile widened. "It seemed an appropriate choice."

Jareth's expression went hard again and he strode past him, without even a breeze of his passing to ruffle his hair. "You're being ridiculous. Kindly turn that off before you bring the castle down around us."

In an instant Toby's grin disappeared and he stared at the goblin king in shock and anger. Instead of turning off the little boom box, he pressed his lips together in a furious line, lifted the unit off of the ground, and skipped ahead to the next track. Lush guitars and strings poured out of the speakers, with the drums echoing staccato around them. He had to yell to make himself heard over the din. "Are you so anxious to let this place die, then?"

Jareth stopped, deliberately, and then turned slowly with each movement carrying a veiled threat as he looked back into Toby's eyes. His own were unreadable, marbles in place of a true gaze, revealing nothing at all. It shook Toby to the core but he pressed on regardless. The reckless energy that had propelled him from the moment he had seen his sister again still ran through him and he could not resist it. Did not _want_ to resist it.

Toby ran a hand over the top of the boom box like a talisman and met Jareth's gaze without flinching. "You're not going through much trouble keeping up with the housecleaning if you really wanted to impress Sarah if she comes back."

That got a reaction, and it wrenched at Toby's heart to see the flash of anger in the goblin king's eyes. "You have been rather intent on convincing me that she isn't going to come back."

"She won't," Toby replied with a shrug that he hoped masked his own bitterness. "Not for me this time. I'm legally an adult and she can't stop me from doing much of anything even if she wants to. Besides, she doesn't want to come back."

"Be careful," Jareth warned in a voice hardly above a whisper. "Be very careful what you say here, Toby. Words have power that you cannot even imagine."

"She doesn't miss you," Toby shot back. "If you want her to come here, you have to force her, and I don't think you don't have the power to do it."

Because he couldn't bear to see the look on the goblin king's face, couldn't stand the thought of that much hatred directed his way, Toby turned and stalked over to the nearest window. He set the little stereo on the crumbling sill, wrapping his arms around it to protect it in case the stone gave way beneath the weight, and he rested his chin on it as he stared out the window. It always came back to windows.

Toby's entire life was nothing but staring out of windows, trying to see what wasn't really there.

The disc in the player clicked away lightly beneath his palms as it spun, making its way to the next song without any sensitivity to the delicate situation as "Haunted" gave way to "Control." _Maybe prescient music isn't the best idea after all_, Toby thought with a wash of resignation, but before he could turn the player off, something caught his eye for just a second.

Something outside of the window.

Toby's eyes opened fully again and he straightened up, straining to look more closely when Jareth's hand fell on his shoulder, as heavy as a premonition of doom.

"I warned you," hiss darkly past Toby's ear. "You have no idea what power I wield still, Toby. You presume too much."

Sharp, shapely nails dug into Toby's shoulder without breaking the skin, but the pressure was still enough to make Toby gasp in pain. He reached over with one hand to try and force away the hand, but Jareth's grip was firm. It was like being held by a statue, one built around his self so that he could never escape. Still, Toby tried to relieve that agonizing pressure until his struggles started to make the boom box slip over the edge of the window sill. Then he had no choice but to stop and cling to the black box to keep it safe from the ground below, and try not to cry out as his shoulder shrieked with terror and pain.

Jareth was near enough that his lips brushed over Toby's when he spoke again. "I can give you your dreams…or I can send you into your own nightmares."

A small part of Toby's brain marveled at the fact that under any other circumstances he might have found the feel of those inhuman lips against him hypnotizing, but not now. Now he was frozen in the same fear that overwhelmed the rest of his mind. It didn't matter that his worst nightmares were always here, this same place, with a fairy tale monster just out of sight in the wings. The words and that unrelenting grip were more terrifying than Toby remembered any of the dreams being.

Searching desperately for a way out, Toby glanced up at the dead sky, and in that moment the movement that had caught his eye flashed across his vision again. And this time, he knew what it was.

Toby suddenly found himself fighting down the hysterical urge to laugh. "You could," he managed to say with at least some semblance of calm, "but that's all. You have no other power here. You're a king without a kingdom and a magician with no magic to draw on with everyone gone."

Abruptly, Jareth released him and stepped back. Toby let out the breath he hadn't even known he was holding and turned slowly, still clutching the stereo to his chest protectively. The goblin king studied him closely. Toby was amazed to see what he thought was surprise in his strange, captivating eyes.

"You have no power over me," Toby whispered to himself, and the goblin king actually flinched. "Not while you're alone."

"Who told you?" Jareth asked harshly. "Where did you hear that?"

Now Toby couldn't keep from smiling, though he did manage to swallow his laughter once again. "A little bird told me," he answered, and gestured towards the window. "Like the ones out there."

There was no mistaking the shock in Jareth's eyes at that moment as he closed the distance between them and pushed Toby aside to stare out of the window in disbelief. The three dark specks circling in the dying sunlight were too far away to tell what species they were, but they were, without a doubt, birds of some sort. More importantly, they were _something_…something other than Toby, Jareth, and the sad remains of a fading labyrinth that stood as a monument to failure.

"Impossible," the goblin king breathed. "This is impossible."

A snicker escaped Toby and he coughed to try and cover it up. "It might be the music," he offered innocently. "Just a thought."

Jareth turned to stare at Toby with a mixture of surprise and annoyance, and Toby shrugged, doing his best to look nonchalant and clueless. "They like noise, you know. My ex had a pair of finches. Annoying little bastards that never shut up. But they always got even more excited when she and I were fighting. They just liked it because it was really loud."

He touched a finger to his lip in mock thoughtfulness and the corners of his mouth twitched with the effort of keeping from smiling. "You know, in one of my classes, we learned that most creatures are happier if there is a lot of noise than if there isn't any at all. It all goes back to instincts and evolution. Things were only silent when there was danger nearby because everything was trying to hide and not get killed. Sound meant safety, and safety leads to relaxation and happiness. It's ingrained in all of us. Not just humans, all of us."

Now Jareth stared at him with nothing more than disbelief, and Toby found he couldn't control himself anymore. He broke into a wide grin that made his entire face ache and began to laugh, uncontrollably, gleefully, triumphantly. When he was able to get some breath, he did his best to gasp out an explanation.

"It's funny," he panted in between bursts of mirth. "I don't even want her to come back here, and I'm the one giving you back everything you need to bring her here!"

Toby fell back against a wall and slid to the ground, giggling helplessly with tears burning at his eyes. The boom box dropped to his side a bit more heavily than he had meant it to, but the only damage done was to make the CD inside skip ahead over the end of the third track and on to the fourth. Crackly conversation poured from the speakers to bounce off of the walls and the groaning of a thousand haunted walls surrounded them again. In reply, a bird cried out from not too far outside of the window, and Toby cracked up again.

Jareth watched him without any of his usual annoyance, though Toby could barely focus enough to notice. By all rights, he should have been furious…there Toby was, slumped helpless on the floor in nothing but a t-shirt, flannel, and dirty, freshly torn jeans, barefoot and streaked with dirt from his crash landing back in the goblin castle, proving himself to understand the way this strange world worked more than it's true ruler did, and _mocking_ him at that. Part of Toby was waiting for the goblin king to grab him the way he had moments earlier, haul him to his feet, and destroy him on the spot.

The moment never came.

At last, Toby managed to calm himself down, smearing more dust across his cheek as he wiped at his damp eyes. As he struggled to breathe normally again, Jareth moved to stand in front of him. The blurry figure did not loom or threaten. He simply stood there, and waited until Toby had returned to normal.

When the young man began to haul himself to his feet, Jareth stepped back to give him room. His voice was soft…commanding, but soft and empty of any threat. "Be careful where you play that," he ordered calmly. "I don't think you would like the entire castle coming down on top of your own head."

With that, he turned smoothly and flowed down the hallway, away from Toby and into some other mysterious part of the castle.

With some difficulty, Toby managed to get to his feet again and catch the rest of his breath. With a wry grin in the direction that the goblin king had escaped, he flicked the tuner on the stereo to the eighth track and listened to Poe's voice call out all of her indiscretions.

"It's an accurate statement about me, too," he called mockingly down the empty hallway, and turned back to the window, snickering, to watch the birds as they circled nearer and nearer to the castle with each faraway flap of their wings.


	8. Chapter Eight

_Author's Note: __I'm so sorry, everyone…I was almost exactly on schedule with the chapter, even with the brand new convention here in town, singing competitions, and working like crazy on releasing my first album, but the same week I should have been finishing this and updating, I found out that my father has leukemia. So…yeah. It interfered with me getting up the desire to write, and then I had to juggle finals and spending time with him while he got sick from all the testing and things they had to do to him. Fanfic became a very low priority on my list then. But I'm back now, and while I can't guarantee monthly updates because of that stress, I will try for them at least, and barring any emergencies I will not be going on another multi-year hiatus with this fic. I can promise you that for sure. __Anyway, in this chapter we have hints of new guests that used to be old friends, more fun music, and avian voyeurism. Yes…you read that right. Trust me, it's not as creepy as it sounds, really…or I hope it isn't…_

**Chapter Eight**

_Give in, give in, and relish every minute of it.  
_-"The Walk"

The moonlight was cutting, silver, and cold, most importantly cold, the way it was supposed to be. It was vibrant, so cold that Toby imagined if he stood in the light it would freeze him and cut him to tiny pieces that would shatter on the floor. The moonlight was cruel, and the moonlight was alive.

Toby reveled in the vibrancy, drank it in with each breath. It had been days since he had noticed the changes and the little signs of life, the way the moon shone again instead of just reflecting dying light, all made him feel invincible. And so every night he drank up the moonlight, the fruits of his labors…but only from a distance, just to be safe.

_Maybe tonight_. Maybe tonight he would touch the light filtering through his window. Maybe tonight it would draw blood and prove that he was awake.

Toby held out an arm and studied the way that the oversized white sleeve draped over his skin and bones. After a moment her curled his fingers into the ends of the sleeve, undid the top buttons, and watched his fingers disappear.

Then, in the frozen stillness, a shadow appeared amidst the breathless sound of wings.

Toby glanced up at the window curiously and a brief smile passed across his face. The large owl on the windowsill carefully studied him with absolute stillness, unblinking. There was no wind to ruffle its feathers, not yet. For a moment Toby nearly reached out to touch it but the impulse was gone almost before it occurred. It might be his first owl in this world, but it was still an owl, a predator. Dangerous, like the moonlight.

Toby slipped out of his shirt, and then hesitated. His instincts whispered that he must remove it lest his own blood stain the snowy whiteness of the fabric when the moonlight slashed at his skin, but logic should back that this was no real reason at all. Moonlight could not hurt him. The light through the window was only reflections in the air, nothing more.

Toby stared at the garment in his hands and a small laugh escaped him. "Love is a madness," he murmured with a smirk. "What tripe."

The owl at the window mantled at the sound of his voice. Toby looked back at it and this time his smile was real and warm. "Did I startle you?"

Large mirrored eyes blinked at him in response and Toby laughed softly at himself. "I'm sorry. I'm talking to birds now. That's what happens when the only other person in the entire world refuses to talk to you. We even went over it in class once." He hesitated for a moment. "I don't remember which class, now. I don't remember.

"Anyway, it had to do with isolation. Human beings can't deal with being truly isolate. If they're left alone without anyone at all to communicate with, they'll spill their life story to the first listening ear, even if they have to make something to talk to, like projecting onto a coconut or something. That's why solitary confinement is more effective on prisoners than outright torture. When they're finally let out, they're usually so grateful that they'll say whatever their captors want, just to be able to communicate with someone else again." Toby chewed his lip for a moment in thought. "There was more, too. Something about animal instincts and not being able to deal with real silence. Did I already tell someone about that? It's not important, though, is it?"

The owl ruffled its feathers and let them resettle. Its eyes never left Toby. Suddenly, that gaze was unnerving and uncomfortable, too difficult to bear any longer. Toby fell silent and turned away from the window self-consciously, hurriedly sliding the shirt back over his form again.

"Talking psychology with owls," he muttered to himself in disbelief. "Seriously, Toby, get a grip."

With a final shake of his head, Toby climbed into the cavernous bed and lack back on top of the covers with his eyelids lowered drowsily. After a minute of near silence broken only by his light breathing, the crawling of his skin became too much to deal with. Toby let his head fall to the side and opened his eyes.

The owl was still there, watching him in complete silence, never moving even a single feather.

With a frown, Toby yanked the hem of his shirt down over his bare thighs and turned onto his side so that his back was to the window. He shut his eyes tightly like a child trying to block out a bad dream, but he didn't sleep. Not until he heard the minute sound of his silent observer taking wing again.

He didn't sleep for a very long time.

* * *

"_I call this song…Lemon Meringue._" The voice issuing from the speakers chuckled. _"That was a bad joke, no? But listen. This will be a _good_ song."_

Toby let his foot tap absently as the song began its soft build into the beginning. He had been filling his days with noise and so he hadn't noticed the other sounds until last night, when he had been leaning out the window hoping to deter his nightly visitor from interrupting his sleep again. Perhaps it had been happening for days and had been too far away for him to hear until then, or maybe it had just because. Maybe it didn't matter when it started, because either way, Toby heard sounds coming from beyond the castle walls.

The music whispered beside him, not screaming the way it usually did so that he could hear over it. Toby leaned over the balcony railing and studied the city and the labyrinth beyond. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he thought he would know when he saw it.

Somewhere in the depths of the maze, something cried out. Across the way rose a chorus of answering laughter. Toby strained, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever made the sounds, but there was nothing to be seen. The city and the labyrinth had fallen silent again for the moment.

As the silence lengthened, there was a rustling sound behind him. Toby whirled, his eyes wide in disbelief. It couldn't be…

It wasn't. No night bird fluttered above the balcony behind him. Instead the goblin king stood there smiling sardonically at the expression on Toby's face. "Were you frightened? Afraid I was the monster under your bed?"

Toby swallowed against the wash of emotions surging through him that _did_ frighten him with their sheer intensity. "Actually," he managed, "he and I have been getting along excellently. He makes great margaritas."

The next words slipped out without him meaning to say anything at all. "It's the owl that bothers me."

One shapely eyebrow rose in mild surprise. "Owl?"

Toby wished fervently that Jareth didn't rob him of basic verbal filtering skills. He tried to shrug his embarrassment off as if it didn't matter whether he made a good impression on Jareth or not. "There's an owl that sits on my window every night now. It's annoying as hell."

The faint smile the goblin king wore stretched into an expression of triumph. "But Toby, I thought you wanted life back in the goblin city."

"I do," Toby shot back with a hint of annoyance. "I just don't necessarily like the part that's playing at being an avian peeping tom."

Jareth did not respond but neither did his expression change even the slightest hair. Toby resisted the urge to roll his eyes and instead turned back to the city. "There was laughter coming from over there somewhere," he said and he gestured in the general direction of where he had heard the sound.

Jareth followed his gaze and shifted nonchalantly. "The Fierys are back, then."

"The whosawhats now?"

Another call rose from the city but the goblin kind hardly seemed to notice. "Inhabitants of the labyrinth. I never had much to do with them. They took care of my business well enough without my interference."

Toby turned back to face him again. "What is your business, anyway?"

Jareth pointedly raised his eyebrows. "Keeping outsiders from finding out my business."

Toby matched the challenge in his look quirk for quirk. "And how's that working out for you right now, then?"

Something that sounded like a small, far off explosion came from what Toby thought was the same area as where he'd heard the laughter. The goblin king rolled his eyes heavenward with a look of faint disgust. "They're going to blow up the labyrinth before anyone is even back yet," he muttered, and Toby wondered if he'd even meant to speak aloud. Before he could ask, though, Jareth focused on him again. "At any rate, I haven't seen them in several lifetimes. They're most unpleasant."

It was like some hole had just opened up beneath Toby, taking all of his sense of accomplishment, his pride, and the butterflies that had been steadily building since the appearance of the goblin king with it. He tried not to clench his fists in frustration and bitterness. "That's right," he replied too calmly. "You tend to avoid things that annoy you."

"Of course. Why shouldn't I?"

The unruffled tone of Jareth's voice had Toby's control slipping for just one telling moment. "Then why are you here talking with me again?" he demanded as anger and hopelessness rolled over him. "You avoid things you don't like so why are you here right now?"

The goblin king stared at him for a moment before stepping forward until he was face-to-face with the young man. Toby somehow managed not to step back or slam a fist into that unearthly face. He shook with the effort of maintaining control. And all the while, those strange bi-colored, depthless eyes stared at him, measured him, and took in everything that was him without even blinking once.

At last the goblin king let out a small laugh and put a hand on Toby's shoulder. Electricity ran through the young man and he shivered involuntarily beneath the touch. "Really, Toby," Jareth said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You are hardly as annoying as all that."

His cold hand fell away again and he turned quite suddenly and strode back towards the castle. "I may like this song," he called back as he left. "It's probably because you aren't trying to bring the castle down around my ears any longer."

Toby waited until the goblin king was out of sight before slamming his fists down onto the balcony railing, sliding down to the floor, and cursing everything he could thing of except his own inability to keep from acting like a lovesick high schooler whenever Jareth was around.

* * *

Night approached and fell, and still Toby paced the length of his room, restless and annoyed beyond reason. He couldn't even bring himself to be concerned about whether or not that owl would be there to spy on him and disrupt his night yet again. There was only room in his mind for one thing, and that was everything that the thrice-damned goblin king kept doing to him…and Toby wasn't even sure he knew that he was doing half of it.

Then again, Jareth very rarely seemed to be anything other than completely in control of everything and everyone in the vicinity. It was entirely likely that he was doing it all intentionally. Still, intentional or not, it was very, _very_ frustrating, in more ways than one, and as Toby remembered the deliberate way the goblin king's hand had come to rest on his shoulder that afternoon, he wanted to tear his hair out. Or something similarly destructive.

His shoulder still burned, or at least Toby imagined it did. He could feel the imprints of Jareth's fingers where they had rested against him, tingling and distinct. His stomach knotted, not unpleasantly, and his heart still pounded irregularly inside his chest. It was probably because he hadn't seen or spoken to the goblin king in days, maybe even a week, that had him overreacting so much, Toby decided. No contact followed by such overstimulation just had his imagination working overtime, that's all.

A moment later Toby dismissed his theory with a disgusted groan. Even that didn't give him a rational explanation for the way he was acting. It was just a _touch_, a stupid touch on his shoulder, and what might have almost passed for a compliment in an alternate universe. It was absolutely nothing, and instead of reacting normally, Toby's emotions went into overdrive.

But those words, as backhanded as they were…he'd just been so, so happy to hear them…

As his skin went warm with pleasure at the memory, Toby fisted his hands in his hair and let out something that was halfway between a scream and a sob. He closed his eyes tightly and dropped heavily onto his bed, falling backwards and kicking his legs straight out as he yelled. As if _that_ would help anything…but Toby didn't care if he was acting childish and irrational. He was too angry and frustrated and sad and elated and confused to care.

"It's. Not. Fair!" he shouted at no one and everyone at the same time. "I hate you and I love you and I can't stand you and it's just…not…_fair!"_

The only reply was his own voice echoing back at him from the walls of the castle. Not that he expected anything more.

At last, Toby sat up and rubbed a hand over his face as if to wipe away everything he felt. When he had caught his breath again, he opened his eyes again.

There on the windowsill, silhouetted by the blinding white moonlight, sat the owl.

Suddenly, Toby had had enough.

Why exactly was he so worried about behaving logically? He was smack-dab in the middle of a fairy tale, for crying out loud. The ever-frustrating object of his affections wasn't even human and ruled over a kingdom filled with talking neon worms, stone playing card things with two heads, and something called Fierys, not to mention goblins and lord knew what other things lived in the kingdom when it was actually inhabitable. He'd gotten there by jumping out of a window at his parents' house, and to top it all off, no matter how much he had been playing it, his stereo didn't seem to be running out of batteries in the slightest. _And I have an owl stalking me_, Toby thought in sudden challenge. _Logic has no place within these walls._

The owl's feathers stood on end for a moment and without thinking Toby stood. He stepped forward, halting just at the edge of the moonlight, and stared directly into the owl's large, oddly pale eyes. Jareth had the same ability to unnerve him by simply staring, just watching and waiting without moving or speaking or even blinking. It left Toby completely off-balance and flailing.

_And enough is enough._

Without once breaking his gaze away from the figure in the window, Toby slowly unbuttoned the white nightshirt until it hung open and the chill night air brought gooseflesh up over his chest. The owl blinked at him slowly and mantled at nothing in particular. The corners of Toby's lips quirked upward and he carefully slipped his arms out of the sleeves and let the shirt fall to the floor. Only then, when he was completely naked and exposed, did he step forward into the moonlight.

The moment the light touched his skin, Toby flinched, suddenly certain that his nervous mental ramblings had been true and he would be cut into tiny ribbons by the beams. But nothing happened. Toby relaxed and finally looked away, studying the shadows playing over his skin in the new light. As he watched the moonbeams crisscross over his moving fingers, Toby smiled, closed his eyes, and opened himself to all of it.

For a long time he stood as still as the bird a mere arms length away from him. Toby didn't move, even keeping his breathing shallow, and let the moonlight pick out the stark details of his form…the shadow of his collarbone, the pale freckles on his arms, the dark shape of a nipple, the whiteness of a scar than ran just along his left rib, the relief of the veins on his hands, the bruises on his knees from his crash landing back in the castle…every single human detail. The owl seemed to be studying him as well, and suddenly, without warning, it took off and shot back into the night sky.

Toby opened his eyes, watched the shadow disappearing into the moon, and the smile he wore was one of pure triumph.


	9. Chapter Nine

_Author's Note: Ugh. Life is just evil to me sometimes. I think it just goes in three year cycles or something because since the internship this summer I've had my mother land in the hospital several times again, Dad had another cancer scare, I got a second job and then had to work extra hours because several other servers quit so I was doing 74 hour weeks for a bit there, my senior recital decided that it was cursed, there were three deaths in the family and two arrests, and then it was time to graduate. So…yeah. Now that I'm free for at least nine months except for work, things should go better but since both of my parents are still really sick so I'll try for monthly updates but once again I can't promise anything. Hopefully this and the next two chapters will help with that, though…this is it, folks, what I've been promising for eight chapters now! The slashiness begins at last! This chapter we'll find out about Jareth's voyeuristic tendencies, learn what else Toby brought with him in terms of music, and take another trip into the labyrinth to meet an old friend from the movie. Enjoy!_

**Chapter Nine**

_You can make me breathe eternally…_  
-"Hollow"

On the whole, Toby thought that going mad was probably the best decision he had ever made.

He'd always known that he didn't fit in with the rest of the so-called real world. Trying to fit in and be a logical human being just had never been comfortable for him. Now he was in a world that made no logical sense and everything just seemed to fall into place perfectly. He saw no reason to question the fact that his stereo batteries were never going to run out, the existence of fairy tale monsters in the same city as himself, or the fact that the world around him was literally going backwards in terms of age. It made perfect sense to him until he thought about it, after all.

It had started with the wind.

Toby rarely slept beneath the thick blankets of his bed simply because without even the slightest breeze to chill the sweat on his skin, there was nothing to make him cold enough to need them. The air in the goblin city was so stale and still, especially at night. If a slight breeze ruffled his hair outside during the day, it was a rare occurrence and more likely than not was more related to the goblin king preparing to make an appearance than actual wind. It was one of the most obvious signs in Toby's mind that the world was dying.

Then one night, Toby awoke shivering with the wind whistling like a scream through the cracks in the castle walls.

It had been so long that at first he wasn't sure what he was feeling. Toby sat up, wrapping himself in the thick, velvety blankets as he did so, and stared out the window in disbelief. Shadows danced across the walls of his room as the flames in the lanterns flickered madly in the wind and the curtains around the bed billowed and whipped about, almost hitting him full in the face when they blew inward. At home this wouldn't have been that big of a wind storm, with windows to protect him and regular weather updates broadcasting the changes every night. Here, though, where the windows were just holes in the walls and the castle cracked and crumbling and no wind ever at all, it was amazing.

As he shivered in the chill and batted away at the curtains impatiently, Toby couldn't help but laugh in triumph.

The storm was short lived, but from then on there was always a small breeze around the goblin kingdom. It was the biggest change to happen yet. Not even Jareth could ignore it, and he didn't, if the slight line of annoyance between his brows was anything to judge by.

It was a trophy and Toby took it with him with pride.

Sound was beginning to carry more normally through the labyrinth as well. Before, in all that stillness, Toby could hear everything too loudly and too clearly. Now he both heard less and heard more. The sound of a rock falling from the walls of the maze no longer carried through the simple sounds of life in the air. And whispers of sound from far beyond where he could see from the castle were carried to him by the wind.

The sun felt warmer, too, less far away and weak. It meant that the nights were all the colder for it, but in the day time Toby could stretch out on the balconies of the castle and feel the rays actually warming his skin instead of simply lighting it.

He did it often, and didn't care if there was anyone around to see him lounging around shirtless or not. It felt too nice, too alive for him to care.

Even the castle itself seemed to be repairing slowly when he wasn't looking. There had been one afternoon where Toby had been so filled with rage and frustration and sorrow at the way that Jareth suddenly seemed unable to talk to him, like reviving his kingdom was a _bad_ thing, that he had stalked off to the Escher room fully intending to just go home and see how the idiotic goblin king liked it when everything fell apart again. When he got there, though, the sight of the holes in the walls being completely gone stopped him in his tracks.

Toby couldn't seem to take his eyes off of the whole, all-surrounding walls of the room. He set down the boom box at his side without thinking and instead of stepping off into the abyss between the staircases he circled the room, running his fingers lightly over the stone walls as if searching for holes that he could not see. He wandered over the twisting, gravity defying stairs without even realizing it, probing the ground before him with his bare toes, waiting for the stairs to crumble away at the slightest touch.

Everything stayed whole. The room was still rank with disuse, but everything was whole again.

Toby sat with his legs dangling over the edge of the staircases into nothingness and studied his surrounding until it was too dark to se, never finding a single gap in the stones or worn away edge of a step. He had completely forgotten about going home.

The next morning he had switched the Poe CD out for something less dramatic, a mix CD that ranged from mystical with "Tubular Bells III" to creepy with "Bitemarks and Bloodstains" to even mellow jazz standards like "Cry Me A River" that tugged at Toby's emotions until he had to skip past them. He didn't bother blasting the stereo any more, either, unless it matched his mood. There were other sounds now. He didn't have to fill that horrible, terrible, frightening silence on his own any more.

And through it all, Jareth brooded and avoided him as if he were furious with Toby for everything that he had done. For not being Sarah.

Toby let him. Told himself that he didn't need the goblin king's approval. His time was over. Toby's was begun. But he still skipped over Julie London sobbing over her once-broken heart, and he found himself venturing out into the labyrinth more and more in the hopes of finding something to distract him from his misery.

Everywhere he looked, Toby found evidence that his intuition had been right. His kingdom, his prize, was there for him to take every waking moment. And all he wanted was for Jareth to look at him the way he did when he talked about Sarah, and that was the one prize the goblin king could deny him.

* * *

The alley echoed with the sound of Toby's footsteps and the sound was more reassuring than any one else he knew could have guessed. Even Anna had thought he was a little bit crazy for being so afraid of silence. Then again, Toby had never bothered to explain why to her. He wasn't sure if he could explain it to himself without sounding like a lunatic.

Of course, now that he was acknowledging the fact that he was quite well and truly on the path to Crazy Town, complete with the day pass to Childhood Phobias Land, Toby could explain it perfectly well. The place that he was meant to be was never silent except when it was dying and if it died, where would he go?

So the sound of his own footsteps comforted him. If he could still hear them, then there was still something there for him to walk through with those echoes all around him. If there were echoes, and something to cause those echoes, there was something alive in this place. Toby still wasn't sure if he was the only thing left in the goblin city as of yet, but at least he was there. Besides, there were definitely others in the labyrinth itself. Every so often he could even see them from the castle towers. He wasn't a fan of getting lost in that stupid, illogical, and completely unfair maze again just to find some company, however, so he searched the hitherto empty city instead.

There were fewer and fewer obstructions in his path every time he made his way out of the city. Toby wondered if that was a sign that someone was there removing all of the debris or if the city was healing itself the same way that the castle was, silently and secretly when no one was watching. Whatever the reason, his trips out to the labyrinth grew shorter every time, leaving him even longer to explore every day before he stumbled his twisting and confused way back to the castle.

Toby stepped outside the gates of the goblin city and stared at the towering walls just past the mounds of junk and debris before him. Strangely enough, none of those piles seemed to be changing at all. The maze was repopulating itself with every second that passed and the castle and city, while still nearly silent, were returning to their former glories, but this mound of trash outside the gate never seemed to grow any smaller. Toby almost wondered why. There had to be a reason, an obvious one just under his nose, but…

Before he could really begin to think about it, Toby's foot came down on a plastic cup that cracked like a gunshot when it broke. Toby managed not to jump in surprise at the sudden sound, though his heart raced, but a moment later it didn't matter when a face appeared right in front of him from a pile of rubbish and screamed at the top of its lungs.

"Hey now! What do you think you're doing, hmmm?"

Toby yelped and almost fell over backwards when he jumped away from the wrinkled face. It frowned at him and the mound of rubbish moved and shifted until he realized that the small pile of junk he had been passing was actually alive. The junk woman moved closer to him, her garbage-covered body twisting awkwardly as she did so, and began to lecture him at the top of her lungs. "What do you mean coming here and disturbing an old woman in her home, eh? Got something to say do you? Well, go on then, say it and be done with it!"

Toby shook his head vehemently and held out his hands in apology, or possibly to fend the old woman off. "It was a mistake. I didn't know. I don't have-"

"Hold on a minute there," the junk woman interrupted suddenly as she moved in close to study Toby from mere breaths away. She moved with surprising agility when she wanted to. Toby fought back the urge to jump back again and tried to breathe through his mouth so that he didn't have to smell her. Bloodshot eyes peered up at him suspiciously and when her lips pursed in thought, he had to fight back the urge to tell her she looked like the victim of the world's worst lemonade stand.

After a moment, the junk woman edged back and the wrinkles in her face shifted into what Toby thought might be a softer expression than before. "I know you," she told him proudly. "Mmm, yes, I do."

Toby blinked once. "You do?"

"Yeeees, yeees," she drawled in an almost singsong voice. "Known you since you were a baby, yes I have. Haven't seen you in years. You've grown, yes, oh my you've grown…"

"You knew me when I was a baby," Toby said flatly.

"Better looking than your sister was, yes you are," the junk woman crooned, and that was when Toby went from curiosity and mild boredom to barely contained rage.

"You know Sarah." He reached out to catch the old creature's arm and yanked her back from her wanderings around him roughly, startling her into silence. "You met her before."

"How rude to me she was," she sighed in disappointment. "Never seen such rudeness before. Mind your manners well, young man, you don't want to end up like your sister do you now?"

Toby clenched his jaw, resisted the urge to scream, and instead turned around and kicked a broken piece of stone into a wall.

The little hunchback woman didn't say a word. She clucked her tongue in distress but didn't seem at all surprised at his reaction. Instead, she put a gnarled hand on his elbow (Toby thought she might be too small to reach his shoulder) and waited in silence. At last Toby's shoulders sagged in defeat and he asked without looking at her, "What happened when you met her the first time?"

"The only time," she corrected without seeming to think about it. She tugged at his elbow with surprising strength and Toby had to stumble along in her wake, startled that she could drag him along so quickly. "I'll show you. That's what you want, isn't it? Yes, to see for yourself. You're of a kind, you are, you and that goblin king both. You'll want to see things with your own eyes."

The junk woman prattled on without thinking in the same vein while Toby suppressed a wince at the comparison between himself and Jareth and tried not to give himself tetanus from falling on a snarl of rusted metal. Any of them. There were thousands; more than he could believe had come to be there naturally, even in a city that had been decayed by thousands of years when he came back there.

Toby wondered if metal could breed. It wouldn't have been the weirdest thing he'd learned here if it turned out that it was possible, after all.

His companion suddenly stopped in front of a large hill of debris and pulled at a handful that revealed itself to be a door of some kind. Toby shouldn't have been surprised after everything that happened and he wasn't. It was when he stepped inside and found himself in Sarah's old bedroom, complete with snow globes and music boxes and fantasy figurines long since moved into basement storage and even Lancelot sitting on the bed that the shock hit.

It wasn't possible. Rather, it was possible, but Toby still couldn't believe it even so. He took one step through the doorway and had to stop. He couldn't bring himself to go any further. His heart raced, his breath came up short, and the whole world spun for a moment in a way that he associated with his worst nightmares and too much vodka on an empty stomach and, he realized with a suddenly painful shock, with Sarah. He waited for the moment to pass. It didn't.

He took another reluctant, dreaming step, and the door swung closed behind him, sealing him inside.

Toby whirled in a panic and started to reach for the doorknob when he stopped himself. After weeks of something not quite shy of insanity, he felt like reality was starting to intrude whether he wanted it to or not. And he didn't want it to. Toby had never wanted to go back into his own worst nightmares more than he did at that moment. His feet continued to carry him further into the room, his steps hesitant and disbelieving, until he reached the safe haven of his older sister's bed and collapsed onto it as all of the strength ran out of him at once.

Without having to think about it, Toby reached out and pulled Lancelot in close to him. The bear was cold, as if he had been sitting there alone for a very, very long time.

When he was younger, Toby had liked to pretend that the stuffed toy could travel with him everywhere as long as he held it, around the world and even into his dreams at night. Some part of him must have felt the same way as he got older because he'd always had to force himself to leave Lancelot back at his parents' house whenever he left. It was why he had been there waiting when Toby came back from his former fiancé's and…and then…what?

_Was any of that real?_ Toby wondered. He wasn't sure any more. But even so, his eyes burned and he turned onto his side, suddenly wanting just to fall asleep and never wake up.

This time, he'd take Lancelot with him. His stuffed toy knight didn't deserve to be left behind like that, like a piece of junk in a pile of decaying civilization. He'd come with this time.

The door to the room creaked open and Toby sat up with a scowl, expecting to see Sarah frowning in the hallway at having her place invaded. Instead, the hunchbacked junk woman bustled inside. "Not a piece of junk, then?"

Toby blinked and put a hand to his lips. He hadn't even realized that he'd spoken aloud.

His companion shuffled across the carpet and pushed the teddy bear closer to Toby's chest. "Your sister," she began in a creaking voice thick with disapproval, "thought it was all junk. All of this, and…"

She gestured towards the world barely visible beyond the door. "This, too."

Toby squeezed Lancelot tightly, both thrilled at the fact that it hadn't been a dream and terrified as well. The old woman regarded him with one good eye and her face was too creased for him to tell whether she was smiling or frowning at him. "You think it's important, don't you."

It wasn't a question that needed to be answered but Toby nodded anyway.

* * *

He didn't remember going back to the goblin king's castle. He only vaguely remembered making his way to the throne room and sitting down on the step before the crumbling throne, Lancelot still clutched tightly in one hand. Everything still seemed a little bit unreal and fuzzy to him. If he reached out too far, he might rip through the fabric of reality and come out on the other side. If he wasn't careful. He would have to be very careful.

Toby spared half a moment to marvel at how effective whatever spell had been on that room had been, and then Jareth entered and stopped at the sight of him and his attention had to focus elsewhere.

The goblin king inclined his head curiously towards Lancelot. "What is that?"

Toby carefully set the stuffed bear down on the throne and stood, brushing off the last of the cobwebs in his mind as he did so. "An old friend."

"One could say," Jareth mused with a faint smile, "that I am an old friend of yours as well."

"Lancelot's older," Toby answered simply. "And you aren't my friend."

Now Jareth's expression turned to one of mock pain. "You wound me, Toby."

"Doubt it. Hey, if I prick you, will you bleed?"

"I can't say," the goblin king admitted. "I value my skin too much to damage it."

"There you have it," Toby replied insolently, spreading his hands serenely.

To his surprise, the goblin king nodded and said nothing more. He flowed across the room to where Toby stood and studied Lancelot closely with an unreadable expression. Toby watched him just as closely. A part of him suggested that he should be quite a bit more anxious than he was, but for once Toby was content just to watch.

"You've been wounded before," Jareth said suddenly as he turned back to the young man beside him. "Very seriously, I might add."

Toby raised an eyebrow, obviously unimpressed. "Psych major, remember? I don't go in much for deep wounds of the soul and all that. Everything can be fixed through chemistry and giving up on your deep abiding desire to sleep with your mother." He stopped as a thought struck him. "I guess that doesn't apply to you, huh? Cripes, I should be having a field day analyzing you instead of-"

"Toby," Jareth ordered, "stop talking."

His mouth snapped shut and Toby stopped.

"I meant real wounds," the goblin king continued, reaching out with one long finger to trace a line along Toby's ribs and down his side. "The kind that leave scars."

Toby managed not to shiver underneath the touch. It was harder than he liked to admit. "I think you must have missed the bit about me jumping out of windows to get here."

Jareth made a sound that might have been a small, amused laugh, and he pressed his finger against Toby's side more firmly. "Was that how you got this, then?"

"Scars take a lot longer than a week to form," Toby began, and then the words froze in his throat. He had to swallow several times before he could speak again. "How did you know about that scar?"

Without moving, the goblin king shifted his gaze to meet Toby's eyes. It had been a long time since Toby had let himself actually look into those strangely colored eyes. They were too disconcerting for him to stay in control of his emotions and he didn't like risking laying himself bare before the goblin king's gaze.

It hit him like a semi-truck driven by a sumo wrestler on a full crate of energy pills. Toby stepped back. "You," he snapped in a voice harsher than he realized even as he said it. "You were the creepy owl that kept me up all night."

Jareth didn't say anything, but then again he didn't really have to. Toby had never been without his clothes outside of his own bedroom and the balcony just outside the window. Jareth had never been there, at least not looking like himself. It was a place completely secluded from the eyes of the rest of world except for the birds circling overhead and that thrice-damned, lying, conniving…

"You spied on me," Toby accused, and now Jareth did laugh.

"Honestly, Toby, you act as if you are surprised."

The young man just frowned. "Why?"

The laughter cut off abruptly and Jareth's eyes drifted back down towards where his finger still rested against the fabric of Toby's shirt. With a growl of frustration, Toby grabbed his wrist and yanked so that the goblin king tripped forward one step until they were face-to-face. "Tell me," he snapped as his grip on Jareth's wrist tightened until his knuckles ached. "Tell me why!"

Jareth's voice was flat and emotionless. "I was looking for some of your sister in you."

Toby's fingernails dug into the flesh beneath his fingers and he made himself fling the goblin king's hand away from himself. He stepped back and crossed his arms to hide the sudden fit of shivering that took him over. "Did you find her, then?"

"No," Jareth answered in low, stern voice. "There is none of her in you."

Before Toby could turn away, Jareth's hands closed on his shoulders tightly enough to reawaken the bruises from ages before. "There is none of Sarah in you," he repeated, and a small frown line appeared between his brows. Toby forgot how to breathe. "So why is it, Toby, that I let you stay here even so?"


End file.
